Metallopolyyne polymers as new functional materials for photovoltaic and solar cell applications

The need to develop inexpensive renewable energy sources has stimulated intensive scientific research for efficient, low-cost, lightweight, photovoltaic devices. Organic polymer-based photovoltaic elements have offered the potential to obtain cheap and fabrication-easy methods to harvest energy from sunlight as compared to inorganic semiconductors. Encouraging progress has been made over the past few years in the field of photovoltaic solar cells using organic polymers. One attractive alternative discussed in this Talent Article is the development of photovoltaic and solar cells that are based on the exploitation of strongly absorbing metallopolyynes of platinum as the electron donors in bulk heterojunction devices. Power conversion efficiencies of over 4% have been achieved by blending polyplatinynes with electron-accepting methanofullerene. We predict that these conjugated organometallic congeners will make important contributions to identify environmentally friendly hi-tech solutions to the energy problem. This review includes a short summary of the recent achievements of the author in this field and relevant work by others. The ongoing challenges and future prospects of this research area are also discussed.