Public Funding for EIGHT19 Limited

Awaiting Public Project Summary

As illumination level drops (as a result of clouds, or time of day for instance), the power output of silicon photovoltaic cells can drop further than the illumination level drop alone would account for. The aim of the project is to take novel high performance solution processed small molecule organic photovoltaic donor and acceptor materials which have simultaneously demonstrated excellent 1 Sun performance and record low light performance, and adapt the device architecture, deposition methodology and solvent system to demonstrate compatibility with a fully scalable, low energy input, green solvent based solution processed, low cost flexible solar modules capable of harvesting energy effectively in various mixed lighting conditions, allowing energy harvesting right through the day. The modules will be robust, flexible and light weight therefor offering lower balance of systems costs compared to silicon based PV.

The DIRECT project aims to bring together CPIs Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) capabilities and Eight19's Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) platform to deliver an integrated process for barrier protection of OPV devices. The project is a 12 month feasibility study to establish the ground rules for roll to roll ALD barriers for solution processed OPV materials and resultant encapsulated photovoltaic modules. The project will initially be focussed on small area devices for testing ALD deposition on OPV materials, with a scale-up effort towards the end of the project. Test devices will be evaluated by for instance damp-heat testing to establish whether the ALD barrier has formed correctly. In addition a small wireless demonstrator will be produced to highlight the potential benefits of the technology pairing.

PINSTRIPE is a short project to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a new approach to increasing the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic modules by splitting high energy visible photons into 2 infra-red photons before they are absorbed by the module. By increasing the photon flux absorbed, greater power can be generated.

The cost of silicon photovoltaics has fallen dramatically over the last 10 years to around 0.5$ per peak Watt of generating capacity and needs to fall further if grid parity is to be achieved but the efficiency of the best laboratory silicon cells has hardly increased during that period because, at 26% efficient, they are already well optimised and close to the theoretical efficiency limit of 29%. This project aims to develop a coating for solar module cover glass that is able to split photons of high-energy blue and green light into two infra-red photons. This increase in photon flux increases the amount of electricity generated, adding up to 4% to the efficiency of a silicon module of average efficiency and reducing the cost of the solar energy produced. The new materials technology that makes this possible has just been demonstrated to be feasible in a single-layer coating. In this project, the consortium aims to significantly improve the efficiency of the technology, to develop a process for coating it on glass and to show that it can remain operational after lamination to silicon solar cells.

SiFi is a short project to assess the technical and commercial feasibility of a new approach to increasing the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic modules by splitting high energy visible photons into 2 infra-red photons before they are absorbed in the module. The photon splitting process is known as "singlet fission". By increasing the photon flux absorbed, greater power can be generated by a photovoltaic module.

SHINE is a feasibility project to develop a smart label with simple electronic functionality for packaging applications that is powered by energy harvesting from ambient light using a plastic solar module

The SCOPE project addresses a significant issue in the commercialisation of organic photovoltaic devices, namely the need for low cost, high conductivity, transparent, flexible electrodes that overcome the issues of cost, resistivity and fragility associated with existing technologies such as indium tin oxide (ITO). The project will develop electro-less plated grid structures, adapting and evolving existing processes to meet the requirements of organic photovoltaic devices. The project focus is on reel-to-reel compatible fabrication techniques and development of processes that are consistent with mass manufacturing. The project partners are Conductive Inkjet Technology (CIT), world leaders in electro-less plating of patterned flexible substrates and Eight19, an innovative start-up spinning out of the University of Cambridge developing 3rd generation printed solar cells

The present state of the art in Plastic Electronics (PE) has been achieved primarily through empirical development. A crucial step to standardise production and address volume markets is to employ standard commercial quality tool sets to design organic processes, devices and products. These tool sets are known as Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software. Such products as consumer electronics, healthcare or renewable power generation need to be designed in a similar way to the mainstream inorganic microelectronic applications. In a previous successful TSB project (PMOS, between Silvaco, an EDA supplier, and CDT) a significant step was taken in development of device and product design tools for OTFTs. ENLIGHTEN will build on that success by extending and validating the tools developed with real products in the market (through Plastic Logic (PL)), and extending the tool scope to include photonic device (CDTs OLED and Eight19s (E19) OPV devices). This project will be led by the customers of these tools (CDT, PL, E19), with Silvaco implementing models in their EDA design suite validated against customer data. The models generated will be fully published (and thus available to both the PE community and to other EDA developers) and the tools developed will enable more efficient use of available resources to reach device designs capable of scale up to high volumes and yield sooner than could otherwise be the case.