Fabrication of inverted organic solar cells on stainless steel substrate with electrodeposited and spin coated ZnO buffer layers
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Date
2022
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Polymer Engineering
Abstract
Polymer based organic solar cells (OSCs) are of
tremendous interest as suitable candidates for producing
clean and renewable energy in recent years. In this study,
inverted OSCs on stainless steel (SS) substrate with zinc
oxide (ZnO) as the electron selective transport layer (ESTL),
are investigated, occupying bulk heterojunction blend of
regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and phenyl-
C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) as the active material
and poly-(4,3-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)
(PEDOT:PSS) as the hole transport layer (HTL). The
device structure is SS/ZnO/P3HT:PCBM/PEDOT:PSS/Au.
ZnO films are prepared by spin coating and electrodeposition
techniques, followed by annealing under ambient
conditions. The insertion of ZnO layer between the SS
substrate and active layer has improved short-circuit current
( Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF), and
power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared to those of the
reference cell without ZnO layer, achieving the highest
efficiency of 0.66% for the device with spin coated ZnO
from sol–gel technique. This enhancement can be attributed
to the effective electron extraction and the increased
crystallinity of ZnO after annealing treatments at higher
temperatures as further confirmed by X-ray diffraction
(XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses.
Description
Keywords
electrodeposition; inverted organic solar cells; P3HT: PCBM; spin coating; zinc oxide.
Citation
Namawardana, D. G. K. K., Wanigasekara, R. M. G., Wanninayake, W. T. M. A. P. K., Jayathilaka, K. M. D. C., Wijesundera, R. P., Siripala, W., & Malik, M. I. (2022). Fabrication of inverted organic solar cells on stainless steel substrate with electrodeposited and spin coated ZnO buffer layers. Journal of Polymer Engineering, 42(3), 233–242. https://doi.org/10.1515/polyeng-2021-0280