Thuc-Quyen Nguyen

Electrifying the World with Solar Energy

According to a recent report by the US Department of Energy, “world demand for energy is projected to more than double by 2050 and to more than triple by the end of the century.” Thus, the development of alternative energy sources is now recognized by government, society and the global community as an urgent need. Sunlight is the most abundant source of energy on Earth and, if harvested efficiently and economically, can address the energy demands in the future. Organic solar cells potentially can offer low cost, large area, flexible, lightweight, clean, and quiet alternative energy sources for indoor and outdoor applications. In this talk, the world electrification with solar energy and its impact on decarbonization will be discussed, followed by the development of organic solar cells and their potential applications in energy-efficient buildings, greenhouses, and indoor power sources for Internet-of-things (IoT) devices.

Thuc-Quyen Nguyen (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Gernot Oreski

Challenges for new photovoltaic material & module developments

Over the past decade, the photovoltaic industry has seen rapid market growth and dramatic price reductions, driving the adoption of new materials and designs to enhance performance, longevity, or production cost-efficiency. While these innovations offer significant benefits, they also introduce unforeseen failure mechanisms—such as potential-induced degradation and backsheet cracking—emerging years after deployment. Traditional single-stress tests failed to predict these issues, necessitating advanced accelerated testing that combines multiple stressors to better simulate real-world conditions and allows for identification of new degradation modes linked to new module materials or module designs. The main motivations, benefits and challenges for material innovations are discussed in this lecture.

Gernot Oreski (Technical University of Leoben)

Theresa M. Rienmüller

Extracellular stimulation using photovoltaic devices

In this lecture a novel area of application of organic photovoltaic devices will be presented. Recently developed organic electrolytic photocapacitors (OEPCs) are composed of a transparent bilayer of organic semiconductors with a donor-acceptor (p-n) structure, which is deposited on a conductive substrate through vacuum thermal evaporation. OEPCs are capable of working as wireless, extracellular photocapacitive electrodes, which can optically and non-genetically modulate cellular physiology. OEPCs can depolarize cell membranes upon visible light stimulation, leading to the activation of voltage-gated ion channels in mammalian cells, eliciting action potentials in cultured primary hippocampal neurons. The effectiveness of the OEPCs is shown using both whole-cell patch-clamp recordings and a detailed kinetic model of the stimulated cells.

Theresa M. Rienmüller (Technical University of Graz)

Markus Scharber

Organic Solar Cells – Challenges and Perspectives

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have been an important research topic within the materials science and photovoltaics community for the last three decades. Based on the fundamental processes also applied in the photosynthetic reaction center, the development of novel materials and semiconductors has led to significant improvements in the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells. Meanwhile, efforts to reduce costs and improve the product lifetime of OSCs are still lagging behind. This lecture briefly discusses the history and fundamental working principles of organic solar cells and addresses the challenges and perspectives of organic photovoltaics.

Markus Scharber (Johannes Kepler University of Linz)