Toray Industries Inc. developed a new polymer donor material, a main material for organic thin-film solar cells, and realized an organic thin-film solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 5.5 percent.

The conversion efficiency is higher than the 5.15 percent, the highest efficiency that has so far been announced in academic conferences. The company plans to further improve the material performance, aiming to commercialize an organic thin-film solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 7 percent until 2015.

The new donor material has as high an open voltage as about 1V because it incorporates a new structure in the polymer backbone to expand the energy difference between the donor material and acceptor material. In addition, it features a substituent that enables to form an optimal structure of power generation layer, thus, achieving both high short-circuit current and voltage. Through these measures, Toray Industries realized the world's highest-level conversion efficiency of 5.5 percent.

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