Impact of solvents on doctor blade coatings and bathocuproine cathode interlayer for large-area organic solar cell modules
  • Hong, Soonil
  • Park, Byoungwook
  • Balamurugan, Chandran
  • Lee, Jinho
  • Kwon, Sooncheol
Citations

WEB OF SCIENCE

11
Citations

SCOPUS

12

초록

Efforts to commercialize organic solar cells (OSCs) by developing roll-to-roll compatible modules have encountered challenges in optimizing printing processes to attain laboratory-level perfor-mance in fully printable OSC architectures. In this study, we present efficient OSC modules fabricated solely through printing methods. We systematically evaluated the impact of processing solvents on the morphology of crucial layers, such as the hole transport, photoactive, and electron transport layers, applied using the doctor blade coating method, with a particular focus on processability. Notably, deposition of charge transport layer using printing techniques is still a challenging task, mainly due to the hydrophobic characteristic of the organic photoactive layer. To overcome this issue, we investigated the solvent effect of a well-studied cathode interlayer, bathocuproine (BCP). We were able to form a uniform thin BCP film (similar to 10 nm) on a non-fullerene based organic photoactive layer using the doctor bladed coating method. Our results showed that the use of volatile alcohols in the BCP processing required a delicate balance between wettability and vaporization, which contrasted with the results for spin-coated films. These findings provide important insights into improving the efficiency of printing techniques for depositing charge transport layers. The fully printed OSC modules, featuring uniform and continuous BCP layer formation, achieved an impressive power conversion efficiency of 10.8% with a total area of 10.0 cm2 and a geometrical fill factor of 86.5%.

키워드

Organic solar cellsOrganic solar cell modulesSolvent effectDoctor blade coatingBathocuproineCURRENT-VOLTAGE CHARACTERISTICSHIGH-PERFORMANCEINTENSITY DEPENDENCEFABRICATIONEFFICIENCYRECOMBINATIONLAYER
제목
Impact of solvents on doctor blade coatings and bathocuproine cathode interlayer for large-area organic solar cell modules
저자
Hong, SoonilPark, ByoungwookBalamurugan, ChandranLee, JinhoKwon, Sooncheol
DOI
10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e18209
발행일
2023-07
유형
Article
저널명
Heliyon
9
7
페이지
1 ~ 9