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Flexible ITO-free organic solar cells over 10% by employing drop-coated conductive PEDOT:PSS transparent anodes

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Abstract

Highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene-sulfonic acid) (PEDOT:PSS) has been explored to fabricate flexible and stretchable conductors. Generally, PEDOT:PSS transparent anodes are prepared by spin-coating method. In this article, we adopt a method by dropping PEDOT:PSS aqueous solution on the PET plastic substrate to fabricate flexible electrodes. Compared with spin coating, drop-coating is simple and cost-effective with large-area fabrications. Through this method, we fabricated highly transparent conductive electrodes and systematically studied their electrical, optical, morphological and mechanical properties. With dimethyl sulfoxide/methanesulfonic acid (DMSO/MSA) treated PEDOT:PSS electrode, bendable devices based on non-fullerene system displayed an open-circuit voltage of 0.925 V, a fill factor of 70.74%, and a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.23% under 100 mW cm−2 illumination, which retained over 80% of the initial PCE value after 1000 bending cycles. Based on the findings, drop-coated PEDOT:PSS electrodes exhibited high suitability for the development of large-area and high-efficiency printed solar cell modules in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFE0106000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773212, 21574144, 21674123, 61705240), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR16B040002), Ningbo Municipal Science and Technology Innovative Research Team (2015B11002, 2016B10005), CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team, CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDBSSW-SYS030), and CAS Key Project of International Cooperation (174433KYSB20160065).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Huiqin Cui, Wei Song, Billy Fanady, Ruixiang Peng, Jiaming Huang & Ziyi Ge

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Ziyi Ge

  3. Faculty of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, 315211, China

    Huiqin Cui & Jianfeng Zhang

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  1. Huiqin Cui
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  2. Wei Song
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  3. Billy Fanady
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  4. Ruixiang Peng
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  5. Jianfeng Zhang
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  6. Jiaming Huang
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  7. Ziyi Ge
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Correspondence to Ruixiang Peng, Jianfeng Zhang or Ziyi Ge.

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Cui, H., Song, W., Fanady, B. et al. Flexible ITO-free organic solar cells over 10% by employing drop-coated conductive PEDOT:PSS transparent anodes. Sci. China Chem. 62, 500–505 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-018-9426-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-018-9426-2

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