Additive effect for organic solar cell fabrication by multi-layer inking and stamping

Abstract

Large-scale printing fabrication of organic solar cells (OSCs) has attracted much attention in recent decades due to its efficient industrial application. Additive in the organic layer is one of the crucial factors that promote both quality of transferred pattern and the power conversion efficiency of the solar cell. Here, an organic material, 3-Glycidyloxypropyl trimethoxysilane (GLYMO), as an additive was used in cost-efficient multi-layer inking and stamping processes to fabricate OSCs. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was used as a transfer carrier that carries patterns from silicon mold to indium tin oxide (ITO) glass or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) to fabricate rigid or flexible organic solar cell devices. By investigating the effects of chemical additives on OSCs performance in a regular procedure, the amount of additive was found which provides the best power conversion efficiency of 1.71%. Further refining the multi-layer inking and stamping process by using the amount of additive found in previous experiments, high-resolution transferred patterns with maximum efficiency were produced. The overall OSCs efficiency and high yield pattern transfers indicate high potential for future printing processing and will thus reduce OSCs production costs. Keywords: Organic solar cells, Pattern transfer, Additives, Flexible substrate, Power conversion efficiency