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An Ink‐Composition Engineering Approach for Upscaling of Organic Solar Cells with High‐Efficiency Retention Factor
Author(s) -
Andersen Thomas R.,
Zhao Feng,
Li Yaokai,
Dickinson Michael,
Chen Hongzheng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
solar rrl
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.544
H-Index - 37
ISSN - 2367-198X
DOI - 10.1002/solr.202000246
Subject(s) - organic solar cell , indium tin oxide , materials science , active layer , inkwell , process engineering , photovoltaic system , commercialization , nanotechnology , layer (electronics) , electrical engineering , composite material , engineering , thin film transistor , political science , law
The potential for commercialization of organic solar cells (OSCs) has vastly increased in recent years as the device efficiency for small‐scale laboratory OSCs has continuously increased. There are, however, still multiple challenges that need to be addressed and overcome. Among them, upscaling of the device manufacturing techniques to be compatible with the potential attributes of low cost must be the pinnacle. Herein, a pathway for upscaling with an ink‐engineering approach toward in‐air optimization of large‐area OSCs is presented. Optimized flexible indium tin oxide (ITO)‐free OSCs based on a PTB7‐TH:IEICO‐4F:PC 71 BM ternary blend show efficiencies up to 10.2% (device active area 0.88 cm 2 ), which is the highest value reported to date (for in‐air slot‐die‐coated devices). This is achieved through ink modifications and optimizations as well as electrode and active layer compositional optimizations, leading to an impressive efficiency retention of 0.86 compared to the in‐literature optimized small‐scale devices.