Abstract
We have investigated spray coating as a novel processing method for organic solar cell fabrication. In this work, spraying parameters and organic solvent influences have been correlated with cell performance. Using airbrush fabrication, bulk heterojunction photovoltaic devices based on a new low band gap donor material: poly[(4,8-bis(1-pentylhexyloxy)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-2,1,3-benzoxadiazole-4,7-diyl] with the C60-derivative (6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) as an acceptor, have achieved power conversion efficiencies over 3%. We show that airbrush fabrication can be carried out with simple solvents such as pristine 1,2-dichlorobenzene. Moreover, the influence of device active area has been studied and the 1 cm2device by spray coating maintained an excellent power conversion efficiency of 3.02% on average.
Highlights
Worldwide, organic photovoltaics are under development as an inexpensive approach for collecting solar energy
Most of the studies on spray coating organic photovoltaic (OPV) have been based on the poly(3hexyl thiophene) (P3HT): the C60-derivative (6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) material system and the commonly achieved efficiency was 2-3% with a small active area (10 mm2)
The resulting organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices were tested in air with a standard A.M 1.5 G solar simulator for I-V characters and external quantum efficiency (EQE) measurement was carried out by a Newport Cornerstone 260 Monochromator connected with a Newport 300 W Xenon light source
Summary
Organic photovoltaics are under development as an inexpensive approach for collecting solar energy. Significant progress has been achieved following these routes, from a starting efficiency of around 1% in 1995 [2] when the bulk-heterojunction architecture was introduced, to 5% in 2007 for the first low band gap donor polymer [3] and most recently record efficiencies of 6%– 8% [4,5,6]. These results are generally limited to the laboratory by the experimental requirement of using ultrathin layers that typically means employing spin coating. Study correlations in such systems, between spray-coating techniques and device performance for potential large scale applications
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