Efficient inverted organic solar cells with a thin natural biomaterial l-Arginine as electron transport layer

Li, Jianfeng; Wang, Ningning; Wang, Yufei; Liang, Zezhou; Peng, Yichun; Yang, Chunyan; Bao, Xichang; Xia, Yangjun

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2019.11.101

Cited by 55 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…[82] Since these pioneering works, research efforts have been conducted toward introducing bioderived materials as electron/hole transport layers (deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), l-arginine), donor/acceptor (photosystems, natural dyes), and electrodes (cellulose, catecholamine). [52,[83][84][85][86] Recently, Uchiyama et al studied the encapsulation of electron donor beta carotene semiconducting layers to provide highly durable solar cells. [87] In fact, similar to DSSCs, the major limitation of Bio-OSCs is the device stability and an efficient processability (Section 5.1).…”

Section: Brief Historical Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Cavinato

Fresta

Ferrara

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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conditions. This makes difficult to further reduce the cost of electricity production. [7,8] Furthermore, although solar energy is a renewable source, it does not mean that any kind of photovoltaics (PV) is sustainable. For instance, silicon is an essential material in electronics and solar industries and, up to date, is irreplaceable. Despite its abundancy in Earth's crust, it is for the vast majority (80%) present as ferrosilicon, whose purification is expensive and highly pollutant. The production of 1 ton of silicon requires 6 tons of raw materials, almost 3 tons of Quartz, 1.5 tons of reducing agents, 1.5 tons of wood and 13 000 kWh of energy. [9,10] Therefore, in 2014 the EU commission included silicon metal in the critical raw material (CRM) list. [11] In this context, the third generation PV has reborn, offering cost-effective and efficient CRM-free devices with a lower reliance on the incident angle of light and integration in smart-end applications, like flexible and wearable devices, [12][13][14] fully transparent solar cells and windows, [15,16] and biocompatible devices. [17][18][19] The leading third generation SCs are organic solar cells (OSCs), [20][21][22] perovskite solar cells (PSCs), [23][24][25][26][27] and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). [28][29][30] Despite their versatile applications and high performances, sustainability still represents a major issue toward becoming an ideal energy technology in the mid-long term future. Among others, fullerene-based materials are toxic, [31] indium tin oxide (ITO) is brittle, chemically unstable, and expensive due to limited indium sources on Earth's crust. [32,33] Cobalt is also listed as CRM, [11] while cadmium, selenium, lead and ruthenium are toxic materials. [34,35] With regard to flexible devices, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the standard substrate; though its environmental footprint is critical and its nonbiodegradable properties lead to harmful effects in living organisms. [36] This has fueled a strong cooperation among the fields of engineering, biology, chemistry, and physics to discover new strategies for cost-effectiveness preparation and implementation of bio-derived materials in highly performing PVs.In general, this cooperation constitutes a part of the emerging and multidisciplinary field of biophotonics, [37] which involves biomedical optics, [38] living light, [39][40][41] biomimetic, biomaterials and bioengineered compounds, as well as fabrication/implementation methods applied to optoelectronics [42] and photonics, [43] among others. For instance, artificial lightning and biology have been recently merged with the implementation of cellulose, chitosan, silk, and fluorescent proteins as Accomplishing sustainability in optoelectronics, in general, and photovoltaics (PV), in particular, represents a crucial milestone in green photonics. Third generation PV technologies, such as organic solar cells (OSCs), perovskite solar cells (PSCs), and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have reached a mature age and are slowly making thei...

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Section: Brief Historical Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Cavinato

Fresta

Ferrara

et al. 2021

Advanced Energy Materials

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“…6 To realize a perfect ETL for enhancing the performance of OSCs, numerous materials including n-type metal oxide semiconductors such as titanium oxide (TiO x ), 7,8 Zinc Oxide (ZnO), 9 stannic oxide (SnO 2 ), 10 cesium carbonate (Cs 2 CO 3 ), 11,12 and polymers, carbon-based materials, small-molecules, 13,14 hybrids/composites, 15 and other evolving contestants have been grown-up as ETL in inverted BHJ OSCs. [16][17][18] Among them, ZnO is a more attractive material owing to its excellent optical transparency, relatively high electron mobility, environment-friendly nature, and ease of fabrication. 19,20 The energy levels of zinc oxide are about 4.3 eV (conduction band minimum) and 7.8 eV (valence band maximum).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Futuristic electron transport layer based on multifunctional interactions of ZnO/TCNE for stable inverted organic solar cells

Aatif

Tiwari

2020

RSC Adv.

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“…Biomaterials have already been successfully tested as the functional layer for different types of electronic devices, including resistive random-access memory (RRAMs) [ 16 , 17 ], field effect transistors (FETs) [ 18 ], dye-synthesized solar cells (DSCs) [ 19 ], actuators [ 20 ], sensors [ 15 ], and batteries [ 21 ]. Li et al [ 22 ] fabricated an organic inverted solar cell by using L-arginine (L-Arg) as the electron transport layer. Their device showed better performance in terms of power conversion efficiency, short current density, and open circuit voltage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly Efficient and Wide Range Humidity Response of Biocompatible Egg White Thin Film

Rehman

Saqib

et al. 2021

Nanomaterials

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Biopolymers are a solution to solve the increasing problems caused by the advances and revolution in the electronic industry owing to the use of hazardous chemicals. In this work, we have used egg white (EW) as the low-cost functional layer of a biocompatible humidity sensor and deposited it on gold (Au) interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) patterned through the state-of-the-art fabrication technology of thermal vacuum evaporation. The presence of hydrophilic proteins inside the thin film of EW makes it an attractive candidate for sensing humidity. Usually, the dependence of the percentage of relative humidity (%RH) on the reliability of measurement setup is overlooked for impedimetric humidity sensors but we have used a modified experimental setup to enhance the uniformity of the obtained results. The characteristics of our device include almost linear response with a quick response time (1.2 s) and fast recovery time (1.7 s). High sensitivity of 50 kΩ/%RH was achieved in the desirable detection range of 10–85%RH. The device size was intentionally kept small for its potential integration in a marketable chip. Results for the response of our fabricated sensor for dry and wet fingertips, along with determining the rate of breathing through the mouth, are part of this study, making it a potential device for health monitoring.

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Efficient inverted organic solar cells with a thin natural biomaterial l-Arginine as electron transport layer

Cited by 55 publications

References 61 publications

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Merging Biology and Photovoltaics: How Nature Helps Sun‐Catching

Futuristic electron transport layer based on multifunctional interactions of ZnO/TCNE for stable inverted organic solar cells

Highly Efficient and Wide Range Humidity Response of Biocompatible Egg White Thin Film

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