Organic solar cells

Photonic Color Filters Integrated with Organic Solar Cells for Energy Harvesting

Hui Joon Park†, Ting Xu‡, Jae Yong Lee‡, Abram Ledbetter, and L. Jay Guo†‡*

^†Macromolecular Science and Engineering, ^‡Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Applied Physics,The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States, and Institute of Optics and Electronics,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610209, China.

ACS Nano, 2011, 5 (9), pp 7055–7060

DOI: 10.1021/nn201767e

Publication Date (Web): July 31, 2011

Color filters are indispensable in most color display applications. In most cases, they are chemical pigment-based filters, which produce a particular color by absorbing its complementary color, and the absorbed energy is totally wasted. If the absorbed and wasted energy can be utilized, e.g., to generate electricity, innovative energy-efficient electronic media could be envisioned. Here we show photonic nanostructures incorporated with photovoltaics capable of producing desirable colors in the visible band and utilize the absorbed light to simultaneously generate electrical powers. In contrast to the traditional colorant-based filters, these devices offer great advantages for electro-optic applications.