Organic photovoltaic mini-module providing more than 5000 V for energy autonomy of dielectric elastomer actuators

Dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) are widely used for soft robotics. The required voltages of over 1000 V are usually supplied by amplifiers with batteries or power grids which however have limited operation time or mobility. This problem also exists for other advanced mobile devices such as electroaerodynamic thrusters. This work reports on the development of high-voltage organic photovoltaic mini-modules (HV-OPMs) comprising 5024 individual sub-cells on an area of 3.8 × 3.9 cm². Under 100 klux white LED illumination, an open-circuit voltage (V_OC) of 5534 V and an efficiency of 6.4% is achieved with the photoactive material PM6:GS-ISO whereas with PV-X plus a V_OC of 3970 V and an efficiency of 19.0% is obtained. Furthermore, a soft suction cup based on DEA was built and could successfully be powered with one of these modules. These results show that HV-OPMs are very promising to realize energy autonomy of low-power high-voltage devices.