NY researchers find way to make organic solar cells more robust
The researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering have discovered a remarkable means of making organic solar panels more robust, including conferring resistance to oxygen, water and light by doing the opposite: removing, not adding, material. The team, led by André Taylor, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and including Jaemin Kong, a post-doctoral researcher at NYU ... employed an adhesive tape to strip the electron-accepting molecules — the conjugated fullerene derivative Phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) — from the topmost surface of the photoactive layer of the solar cell, leaving only non-reactive organic polymers exposed
