Screen printing process control for coating high throughput titanium dioxide films toward printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Screen printing technique has been widely applied for the manufacturing of both traditional silicon solar cells and emerging photovoltaics such as dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Particularly, we have developed a printable mesoscopic PSC based on a triple layer scaffold of TiO2/ZrO2/carbon. The deposition of the scaffold is entirely based on screen printing process, which provides a promising prospect for low-cost photovoltaics. However, the optimal thickness of the TiO2 layer for fabricating efficient printable PSCs is much smaller than the typical thickness of screen printed films. Here, we tune the concentration of the pastes and the printing parameters for coating TiO2 films, and successfully print TiO2 films with the thickness of 500–550 nm. The correlation between the thickness of the films and printing parameters such as the solid content and viscosity of the pastes, the printing speed and pressure, and the temperature has been investigated. Besides, the edge effect that the edge of the TiO2 films possesses a much larger thickness and printing positional accuracy have been studied. This work will significantly benefit the further development of printable mesoscopic PSCs.