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Fabrication of Highly Flat, Flexible Mesh Electrode for Use in Photovoltaics

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Abstract

Metal mesh-based flexible transparent conductive electrodes have attracted much interest as one alternative to conventional indium tin oxide electrodes. In addition to ongoing efforts to develop scalable and cost-effective fabrication processes for high-resolution mesh patterns, the high surface roughness of the mesh which can cause short circuiting and current leakage in optoelectronic devices must be solved. Herein, high-resolution (below ~ 10 μm) mesh patterns with various thicknesses are fabricated by scalable, selective transfer printing and then stably and sufficiently sintered under delicately controlled flash irradiation. A polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film is laminated on the patterns overlaid with a UV-curable resin and then peeled off after UV curing, which produces mesh patterns strongly bonded to the cured resin to be separated in a fully embedded form. The final, highly flat, flexible mesh with a low sheet resistance of 1.7 Ω sq−1, a high optical transparency of 88.6%, excellent mechanical flexibility, and strong adhesion to the substrate is successfully implemented in a flexible perovskite solar cell with a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.92%.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea funded by the Korean government (MSIP) (2019R1C1C1007931) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Korea) under the Industrial Technology Innovation Program (20000665). This study was also supported by the government-funded Research Program of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials Technology Innovation Program (NK224B) and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) through the Encouragement Program for the Industries of Economic Cooperation Region (Grant N0002310).

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  1. Zhaoyang Zhong and Pyeongsam Ko contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nano-Convergence Manufacturing Systems Research Division, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), Daejeon, 305-343, Republic of Korea

    Zhaoyang Zhong, Pyeongsam Ko, Areum Kim & Kyoohee Woo

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hanbat National University, Dongseodaero 125, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 34158, Republic of Korea

    Pyeongsam Ko & Hongseok Youn

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  1. Zhaoyang Zhong
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Correspondence to Areum Kim or Kyoohee Woo.

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Zhong, Z., Ko, P., Youn, H. et al. Fabrication of Highly Flat, Flexible Mesh Electrode for Use in Photovoltaics. Int. J. of Precis. Eng. and Manuf.-Green Tech. 8, 1711–1722 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40684-020-00308-1

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