Fully printed organic tandem solar cells using solution-processed silver nanowires and opaque silver as charge collecting electrodes

We report in this work efficient, fully printed tandem organic solar cells (OSCs) using solution-processed silver as the reflective bottom electrode and silver nanowires as the transparent top electrode. Employing two different band-gap photoactive materials with complementary absorption, the tandem OSCs are fully printed under ambient conditions without the use of indium tin oxide and vacuum-based deposition. The fully printed tandem devices achieve power conversion efficiencies of 5.81% (on glass) and 4.85% (on flexible substrate) without open circuit voltage (Voc) losses. These results represent an important progress towards the realization of low-cost tandem OSCs by demonstrating the possibility of printing efficient organic tandem devices under ambient conditions onto production relevant carrier substrates.

[1]  N. S. Sariciftci,et al.  Efficiency of bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells , 2013, Progress in polymer science.

[2]  Karen Forberich,et al.  High-performance semitransparent perovskite solar cells with solution-processed silver nanowires as top electrodes. , 2015, Nanoscale.

[3]  Younan Xia,et al.  Uniform Silver Nanowires Synthesis by Reducing AgNO3 with Ethylene Glycol in the Presence of Seeds and Poly(Vinyl Pyrrolidone) , 2002 .

[4]  W. Warta,et al.  Solar cell efficiency tables (version 43) , 2014 .

[5]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Towards 15% energy conversion efficiency: a systematic study of the solution-processed organic tandem solar cells based on commercially available materials , 2013 .

[6]  J. Lewis,et al.  Reactive silver inks for patterning high-conductivity features at mild temperatures. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[7]  S. Nau,et al.  Organic Non‐Volatile Resistive Photo‐Switches for Flexible Image Detector Arrays , 2015, Advanced materials.

[8]  Shijun Jia,et al.  Polymer–Fullerene Bulk‐Heterojunction Solar Cells , 2009, Advanced materials.

[9]  Jørgen Stubager,et al.  All‐Solution‐Processed, Ambient Method for ITO‐Free, Roll‐Coated Tandem Polymer Solar Cells using Solution‐Processed Metal Films , 2014 .

[10]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Design of the Solution‐Processed Intermediate Layer by Engineering for Inverted Organic Multi junction Solar Cells , 2013 .

[11]  Yang Yang,et al.  An Efficient Triple‐Junction Polymer Solar Cell Having a Power Conversion Efficiency Exceeding 11% , 2014, Advanced materials.

[12]  Liyong Niu,et al.  Full‐Solution Processed Flexible Organic Solar Cells Using Low‐Cost Printable Copper Electrodes , 2014, Advanced materials.

[13]  Gang Li,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: A Decade of Organic/Polymeric Photovoltaic Research , 2013, Advanced materials.

[14]  Yu-Shan Cheng,et al.  Single Junction Inverted Polymer Solar Cell Reaching Power Conversion Efficiency 10.31% by Employing Dual-Doped Zinc Oxide Nano-Film as Cathode Interlayer , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[15]  F. Jaramillo,et al.  Solution-processed silver opaque electrode for organic solar devices , 2014 .

[16]  Suren A. Gevorgyan,et al.  A rational method for developing and testing stable flexible indium- and vacuum-free multilayer tandem polymer solar cells comprising up to twelve roll processed layers , 2014 .

[17]  Mikkel Jørgensen,et al.  Cost analysis of roll-to-roll fabricated ITO free single and tandem organic solar modules based on data from manufacture , 2014 .

[18]  Mikkel Jørgensen,et al.  The state of organic solar cells—A meta analysis , 2013 .

[19]  He Yan,et al.  Aggregation and morphology control enables multiple cases of high-efficiency polymer solar cells , 2014, Nature Communications.

[20]  Yang Yang,et al.  Silver Nanowire Composite Window Layers for Fully Solution‐Deposited Thin‐Film Photovoltaic Devices , 2012, Advanced materials.

[21]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Highly efficient organic tandem solar cells: a follow up review , 2013 .

[22]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Solution-processed parallel tandem polymer solar cells using silver nanowires as intermediate electrode. , 2014, ACS nano.

[23]  Markus Hösel,et al.  Roll-to-roll fabrication of polymer solar cells , 2012 .

[24]  Mikkel Jørgensen,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: Rise to Power – OPV‐Based Solar Parks , 2014, Advanced materials.

[25]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  A universal method to form the equivalent ohmic contact for efficient solution-processed organic tandem solar cells , 2014 .

[26]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Organic photovoltaics: technology and market , 2004 .

[27]  Gang Li,et al.  Visibly transparent polymer solar cells produced by solution processing. , 2012, ACS nano.

[28]  S. Darling,et al.  Morphology characterization in organic and hybrid solar cells , 2012 .

[29]  A. Heeger,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells: Understanding the Mechanism of Operation , 2014, Advanced materials.

[30]  Yang Yang,et al.  A polymer tandem solar cell with 10.6% power conversion efficiency , 2013, Nature Communications.

[31]  Yongfang Li,et al.  Single‐Junction Polymer Solar Cells Exceeding 10% Power Conversion Efficiency , 2015, Advanced materials.

[32]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Environmentally Printing Efficient Organic Tandem Solar Cells with High Fill Factors: A Guideline Towards 20% Power Conversion Efficiency , 2014 .

[33]  Alberto Salleo,et al.  Spray Deposition of Silver Nanowire Electrodes for Semitransparent Solid‐State Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells , 2013 .

[34]  M. Halik,et al.  ITO‐Free and Fully Solution‐Processed Semitransparent Organic Solar Cells with High Fill Factors , 2013 .

[35]  Jin Jang,et al.  A high efficiency solution processed polymer inverted triple-junction solar cell exhibiting a power conversion efficiency of 11.83% , 2015 .

[36]  Derya Baran,et al.  Fully solution-processing route toward highly transparent polymer solar cells. , 2014, ACS applied materials & interfaces.

[37]  Frederik C. Krebs,et al.  Technological status of organic photovoltaics (OPV) , 2013 .

[38]  Liangbing Hu,et al.  Emerging Transparent Electrodes Based on Thin Films of Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene, and Metallic Nanostructures , 2011, Advanced materials.

[39]  M. Wienk,et al.  Solution Processed Polymer Tandem Solar Cell Using Efficient Small and Wide bandgap Polymer:Fullerene Blends , 2012, Advanced materials.

[40]  Suren A. Gevorgyan,et al.  Scalable, ambient atmosphere roll-to-roll manufacture of encapsulated large area, flexible organic tandem solar cell modules , 2014 .

[41]  W. P. Voorthuijzen,et al.  All-solution-processed organic solar cells with conventional architecture , 2013 .

[42]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  An Efficient Solution‐Processed Intermediate Layer for Facilitating Fabrication of Organic Multi‐Junction Solar Cells , 2013 .