Korean scientists led by Jin Young Kim and Soojin Park, both Associate Professors of the Interdisciplinary School of Green Energy at the South Korean Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have been working on improving PSC efficiency, which they said must reach at least 10% before the cells become commercially viable.

A polymer solar cell is a type of thin film solar cell made with polymers that produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Most current commercial solar cells are made from a highly purified silicon crystal, but are expensive and complex to produce, raising interest in developing alternative photovoltaic technologies. Compared to silicon-based devices, PSCs are lightweight, important for small autonomous sensors, are potentially disposable due to solution processability, inexpensive to make, flexible, and customisable on the molecular level.