Organic indoor light harvesters achieving recorded output power over 500% enhancement under thermal radiated illuminances

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have found their potential applications in the harvest of indoor light photons. However, the output power of such indoor devices is usually far from the demand of the internet of things. Therefore, it is essential to boost the output power of indoor organic photovoltaics to a much higher level. As wildly deployed among industrial and civil luminous environments, thermal radiation-based indoor light sources are alternative candidates to supply the essential power of the off-grid electronics with a broad consecutive emission spectrum. In this work, we evaluated the photovoltaic performance of organic solar cells under indoor incandescent and halogen illuminations. Impressively, under such thermal radiations, an improvement over 500% of the output power density can be achieved in comparison with that under light-emitting diodes and fluorescent lamps, reaching a record high value of 279.1 lW cm-2 by the PM6:Y6-based device. The remarkable power output is originated from the extra near-infrared spectrum of indoor thermal lights, which restricts the effective area under 10 cm2 in achieving 1 mW output power. This work clarifies the feasibility of collecting photons radiated from indoor thermal light sources through OPV cells, and enlightens the further applications of indoor OPV cells under multiple illumination environments. (c) 2021 Science China Press. Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science China Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the photovoltaic performance of organic solar cells under indoor thermal radiation, achieving a significant improvement in output power density. By utilizing the extra near-infrared spectrum of indoor thermal light sources, the power output of OPV cells can be boosted to a record high value, with potential applications in various illumination environments.