Effect of solvent on large-area polymer–fullerene solar cells fabricated by a slot-die coating method

Hong, Soon-Il; Yi, Minjin; Kang, Hongkyu; Kong, Jaemin; Lee, Woontae; Kim, Jae-Ryoung; Lee, Kwanghee

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2014.03.042

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The nozzle tip and/or the substrate usually move with respect to one another to allow uniform deposition of the precursor solution, making spray coating a roll-to-roll compatible process if flexible substrates are used. Compared to other widely reported scalable methods for the fabrication of PSCs, such as screen printing [20], inkjet printing [21], and slot-die printing [22], spray coating is a fast, high-throughput fabrication method and is capable of fabricating thin films with nano-scale thickness, which is required for the efficient performance of some layers [3,[23][24][25]. Even a fully spray-processed solar cell has been fabricated in air [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental Study on the Effect of Spray Parameters on Characteristics of P3HT:PCBM Active Layers Made by Spray Coating

Xie¹,

Gao²,

Eslamian³

2015

Coatings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper is an attempt to elucidate the effects of the important spray characteristics on the surface morphology and light absorbance of spray-on P3HT:PCBM thin-films, used as an active layer in polymer solar cells (PSCs). Spray coating or deposition is a viable scalable technique for the large-scale, fast, and low-cost fabrication of solution-processed solar cells, and has been widely used for device fabrication, although the fundamental understanding of the underlying and controlling parameters, such as spray characteristics, droplet dynamics, and surface wettability, is still limited, making the results on device fabrication not reproducible and unreliable. In this paper, following the conventional PSC architecture, a PEDOT:PSS layer is first spin-coated on glass substrates, followed by the deposition of P3HT:PCBM using an automatic ultrasonic spray coating system, with a movable nozzle tip, to mimic an industrial manufacturing process. To gain insight, the effects of the spray carrier air pressure, the number of spray passes, the precursor flow rate, and precursor concentration are studied on the surface topography and light absorbance spectra of the spray-on films. Among the results, it is found that despite the high roughness of spray-on films, the light absorbance of the film is satisfactory. It is also found that the absorbance of spray-on films is a linear function of the number of spray passes or deposition layers, based on which an effective film thickness is defined for rough spray-on films. The effective thickness of a rough spray-on P3HT:PCBM film was found to be one-quarter of that of a flat film predicted by a simple mass balance. OPEN ACCESSCoatings 2015, 5 489

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental Study on the Effect of Spray Parameters on Characteristics of P3HT:PCBM Active Layers Made by Spray Coating

Xie¹,

Gao²,

Eslamian³

2015

Coatings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this review, we aim to provide an overview of both the academic and industrial issues that need to be addressed for the successful commercialization of BHJ OSCs. This article covers the five core OSC technologies illustrated in Figure ; these technologies are divided into four major sections. Section provides a brief description of the historically monumental developments and state‐of‐the‐art achievements that have mainly contributed to the steady increases in device performance over the past two decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bulk‐Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells: Five Core Technologies for Their Commercialization

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The past two decades of vigorous interdisciplinary approaches has seen tremendous breakthroughs in both scientific and technological developments of bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs) based on nanocomposites of π-conjugated organic semiconductors. Because of their unique functionalities, the OSC field is expected to enable innovative photovoltaic applications that can be difficult to achieve using traditional inorganic solar cells: OSCs are printable, portable, wearable, disposable, biocompatible, and attachable to curved surfaces. The ultimate objective of this field is to develop cost-effective, stable, and high-performance photovoltaic modules fabricated on large-area flexible plastic substrates via high-volume/throughput roll-to-roll printing processing and thus achieve the practical implementation of OSCs. Recently, intensive research efforts into the development of organic materials, processing techniques, interface engineering, and device architectures have led to a remarkable improvement in power conversion efficiencies, exceeding 11%, which has finally brought OSCs close to commercialization. Current research interests are expanding from academic to industrial viewpoints to improve device stability and compatibility with large-scale printing processes, which must be addressed to realize viable applications. Here, both academic and industrial issues are reviewed by highlighting historically monumental research results and recent state-of-the-art progress in OSCs. Moreover, perspectives on five core technologies that affect the realization of the practical use of OSCs are presented, including device efficiency, device stability, flexible and transparent electrodes, module designs, and printing techniques.

show abstract

“…While obtaining a highly uniform spun-on film with a small area is less challenging, scaling up of the technology entails the fabrication of cells with larger areas or the fabrication of multiple cells on a large-area substrate to connect the cells for higher voltage and current. Table 1 also shows the PCE of solar cells fabricated using scalable methods, such as inkjet printing, 18 slot-die, 19 and spray coating, 20 with various active layer areas. Only in the case of the cell fabricated by slot-die printing, the lowest efficiency as well as the highest efficiency are reported.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 1 shows that the PCE of the cells made by scalable methods is generally lower than those of the cells made by spin coating, given that the films with larger area and made by scalable methods are less uniform and have a higher density of pinholes. As far as the scaling up of the technology is concerned, several strategies may be followed: development of scalable coating and printing methods, such as screen printing, 21 inkjet printing, 18,22 slot-die coating, 19 and spray coating, 23,24 customized and optimized for solar cell technology is an important step to achieve uniform and defect-free large-area thin films and devices with compelling performance. Also, when several cells are made on a substrate, usually a few cells which have a uniform and defect-free structure, show an acceptable performance, and the rest of the cells actually do not show any power output or show low performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication of highly reproducible polymer solar cells using ultrasonic substrate vibration posttreatment

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

"Fabrication of highly reproducible polymer solar cells using ultrasonic substrate vibration posttreatment," J. Photon. Energy 6(4), 045502 (2016), doi: 10.1117/1.JPE.6.045502. Abstract. Organic solar cells are usually nonreproducible due to the presence of defects in the structure of their constituting thin films. To minimize the density of pinholes and defects in PEDOT:PSS, which is the hole transporting layer of a standard polymer solar cell, i.e., glass/ ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM/Al, and to reduce scattering in device performance, wet spun-on PEDOT:PSS films are subjected to imposed ultrasonic substrate vibration posttreatment (SVPT). The imposed vibration improves the mixing and homogeneity of the wet spun-on films, and consequently the nanostructure of the ensuing thin solid films. For instance, our results show that by using the SVPT, which is a mechanical, single-step and low-cost process, the average power conversion efficiency of 14 identical cells increases by 25% and the standard deviation decreases by 22% indicating that the device photovoltaic performance becomes more consistent and significantly improved. This eliminates several tedious and expensive chemical and thermal treatments currently performed to improve the cell reproducibility. © The Authors.Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

show abstract

Effect of solvent on large-area polymer–fullerene solar cells fabricated by a slot-die coating method

Cited by 27 publications

References 37 publications

Fundamental Study on the Effect of Spray Parameters on Characteristics of P3HT:PCBM Active Layers Made by Spray Coating

Fundamental Study on the Effect of Spray Parameters on Characteristics of P3HT:PCBM Active Layers Made by Spray Coating

Bulk‐Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells: Five Core Technologies for Their Commercialization

Fabrication of highly reproducible polymer solar cells using ultrasonic substrate vibration posttreatment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About