Organic solar cells (OSCs) based on polymers and small molecules have seen a tremendous increase in interest during the past few years. Signifi cant progress in this fi eld seeded the prospect for a cost-effective and easy-to-fabricate photovoltaic technology-typical advantages claimed for organic (opto-)electronic devices. Very recently, certifi ed cell effi ciencies in excess of 7% have been reported for polymer based cells. [ 1 ] For large-scale and high-throughput production of OSCs, liquid processing of the functional layers is desirable. Aside from the active organic layers, inter-layers are typically required to facilitate the extraction of the photo-generated charges. Specifi cally, on the anode side, polyethylene dioxythiophene:polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) is regularly used. [ 2 ] However, PEDOT:PSS is burdened with structural and electrical inhomogeneity [ 3,4 ] and has been demonstrated to be an origin of limited device lifetime. [ 5 ] Particularly, the aqueous PEDOT:PSS dispersion and the acidic nature can cause substantial degradation. [6,7 ] Very recently, transition metal-oxides (TMOs) such as molybdenum-, vanadium-, or tungsten-oxide (MoO 3 , V 2 O 5 , and WO 3 ) with high work functions (WFs) of up to 6.9 eV have been shown to be promising alternatives to PEDOT:PSS. [8][9][10][11] TMOs have also been used as constituents of the connecting architecture in stacked organic light-emitting diodes and organic tandem solar cells. [12][13][14][15] The unique energetics of these TMOs has so far been predominantly accessible for fi lms thermally evaporated in high-vacuum.The fi rst results for TMO layers obtained by solution processing from nano-particle (NP) dispersions have been reported only very recently. [ 16,17 ] Meyer et al. prepared MoO 3 layers by dispersing MoO 3 NPs using a polymer as dispersing agent. After deposition, the layers had to be treated by an oxygen plasma to remove the polymer. A high WF of the resulting layers of 5.7-6 eV was obtained. A substantial drawback of the approach, however, is the observation of larger NP aggregates with a size of 100 nm and an overall high roughness of 25 nm (rms). Owing to their roughness these NP-layers are critical sources of shorts, especially over a large device area.In contrast, TMO layers (WO 3 , V 2 O 5 and MoO 3 ) have been prepared by sol-gel deposition, predominantly for electrochromic, catalytic and sensing applications. [18][19][20][21] Post processing of the sol-gel TMO layers at high temperatures (300 ° C-600 ° C) is routinely applied in order to achieve specifi c microstructures or crystalline phases in the materials, as required by the particular application. These high processing temperatures are not compatible with the temperature-sensitive substrates (e.g. poly mer foils) envisaged for low-cost, high-throughput fabrication of organic solar cells. In spite of this limitation, Steirer et al. have very recently used NiO prepared via a sol-gel route as a replacement for PEDOT:PSS in an organic solar cell. [ 22 ] The requirement of pos...

For large‐scale and high‐throughput production of organic solar cells (OSCs), liquid processing of the functional layers is desired. We demonstrate inverted bulk‐heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs) with a sol–gel derived V2O5 hole‐extraction‐layer on top of the active organic layer. The V2O5 layers are prepared in ambient air using Vanadium(V)‐oxitriisopropoxide as precursor. Without any post‐annealing or plasma treatment, a high work function of the V2O5 layers is confirmed by both Kelvin probe analysis and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS). Using UPS and inverse photoelectron spectroscopy (IPES), we show that the electronic structure of the solution processed V2O5 layers is similar to that of thermally evaporated V2O5 layers which have been exposed to ambient air. Optimization of the sol gel process leads to inverted OSCs with solution based V2O5 layers that show power conversion efficiencies similar to that of control devices with V2O5 layers prepared in high‐vacuum.

A common phenomenon of organic solar cells (OSCs) incorporating metal‐oxide electron extraction layers is the requirement to expose the devices to UV light in order to improve device characteristics – known as the so‐called “light‐soaking” issue. This behaviour appears to be of general validity for various metal‐oxide layers, various organic donor/acceptor systems, and regardless if single junction devices or multi stacked cells are considered. The requirement of UV exposure of OSCs may impose severe problems if substrates with limited UV transmission, UV blocking filters or UV to VIS down‐conversion concepts are applied. In this paper, we will demonstrate that this issue can be overcome by the use of Al doped ZnO (AZO) as electron extraction interlayer. In contrast to devices based on TiOx and ZnO, the AZO devices show well‐behaved solar cell characteristics with a high fill factor (FF) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) even without the UV spectral components of the AM1.5 solar spectrum. As opposed to previous claims, our results indicate that the origin of s‐shaped characteristics of the OSCs is the metal‐oxide/organic interface. The electronic structures of the TiOx/fullerene and AZO/fullerene interfaces are studied by photoelectron spectroscopy, revealing an electron extraction barrier for the TiOx/fullerene case and facilitated electron extraction for AZO/fullerene. These results are of general relevance for organic solar cells based on various donor acceptor active systems.

The electronic structure of Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), a transition metal oxide with an exceedingly large work function of 7.0 eV, is studied via ultraviolet, inverse and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Very deep lying electronic states with electron affinity and ionization energy (IE) of 6.7 eV and 9.5 eV, respectively, are found. Contamination due to air exposure changes the electronic structure due to the partial reduction of vanadium to V+4 state. It is shown that V2O5 is a n-type material that can be used for efficient hole-injection into materials with an IE larger than 6 eV, such as 4,4′-Bis(N-carbazolyl)-1,1′-bipheny (CBP). The formation of an interface dipole and band bending is found to lead to a very small energy barrier between the transport levels at the V2O5/CBP interface.

Sol-gel processed MoO(x) (sMoO(x)) hole-extraction layers for organic solar cells are reported. A Bis(2,4-pentanedionato)molybdenum(VI)dioxide/isopropanol solution is used and only a moderate thermal post deposition treatment at 150 °C in N(2) ambient is required to achieve sMoO(x) layers with a high work-function of 5.3 eV. We demonstrate that in P3HT:PC(60)BM organic solar cells (OSCs) our sMoO(x) layers lead to a high filling factor of about 65% and an efficiency of 3.3% comparable to that of reference devices with thermally evaporated MoO(3) layers (eMoO(3)). At the same time, a substantially improved stability of the OSCs compared to devices using a PEDOT:PSS hole extraction layer is evidenced.