Comprehensive Evaluation of Industrial Potentials for Indoor Organic Photovoltaic Materials via a New Figure of Merit

Abstract

AbstractAlthough the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of indoor organic photovoltaic (IOPV) continue increasing toward the 30% milestone, important factors (e.g., operation stability and cost potential) for industrial application are neglected, thus resulting in a lack of overall top‐down thinking to evaluate the commercialization potential of IOPVs. By introducing five active layer systems to analyze their efficiency–stability–cost gaps, a standardized indoor industrial figure of merit (i‐FOMindoor) concept is proposed as a reliable approach to evaluate their industrial viability. This i‐FOMindoor contains extracted energy density (including PCE, T80 lifetime, and input power density) and material cost (including synthesis complexity and material usage). To inspire a broader interest, the correlations between active layer thickness, efficiency–stability–cost gap, and i‐FOMindoor are also investigated. Impressively, the levelized cost of energy of IOPVs is less sensitive to the active layer thickness in comparison to the outdoor OPVs. Inspired by this i‐FOMindoor, an outdoor i‐FOM is also proposed for industrial potential evaluation of OPV materials in real external environments.