EffIcient Fullerene-Free organic solar cELls

The accelerated urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels is driven by climate change, but also by the European energy crisis inthe wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reinforces the demand for competitive solar energy conversion technologies.

Organicphotovoltaics (OPV), based on non-toxic abundant raw materials offer an inexpensive technology with vast opportunities for largescaleroll-to-roll production that is scalable to the multi-terawatt level. After a decade of R&D, several European companies areentering the market with OPV products.

However, new materials, so-called non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs), have recently beendiscovered and have yielded higher power conversion efficiencies.

This development occurred mainly in China, so that Europe is atrisk of losing its leading industrial position to the Asia. To reverse this alarming trend, Europe needs to increase its strategicinvestments into OPV research.

Two key directions of particular importance are: tailored novel NFA materials and NFA-based solarcells with long operational lifetime.Our scientific goal within EIFFEL – EffIcient Fullerene-Free organic solar cELs – is to recruit, train and supervise 10 talented Early StageResearchers (ESRs) to design and synthesise novel NFAs suitable for both solution and vacuum processing, for the next generation ofefficient and stable OPV.

In EIFFEL, the unprecedented combination of targeted simulations, organic synthesis, devicecharacterisation and engineering based on industrial needs paves the way to products that overcome OPV’s present-day limitations.EIFFEL’s training programme is uniquely designed to provide the ESRs with multidisciplinary training interlinking chemistry, materialsscience, physics, computer science, and transferable skills.

EIFFEL’s ambition is to form a new generation of creative, entrepreneurialand innovative young researchers with the organisational abilities needed to succeed in interdisciplinary high-tech sectors.