A highly flexible and durable transparent graphene electrode with thermal stability was developed via the direct integration of polyimide (PI) on graphene. Due to the high transparency of PI-integrated graphene electrode and intimate contact between graphene and PI substrate, high-efficiency flexible organic solar cell with a PCE of 15.2% and outstanding mechanical robustness was obtained.

Developing efficient bifunctional catalysts for overall water splitting that are earth-abundant, cost-effective, and durable is of considerable importance from the practical perspective to mitigate the issues associated with precious metal-based catalysts. Herein, we introduce a heterostructure comprising perovskite oxides (La 0.5 Sr 0.5 CoO 3– δ ) and molybdenum diselenide (MoSe 2 ) as an electrochemical catalyst for overall water electrolysis. Interestingly, formation of the heterostructure of La 0.5 Sr 0.5 CoO 3– δ and MoSe 2 induces a local phase transition in MoSe 2 , 2 H to 1 T phase, and more electrophilic La 0.5 Sr 0.5 CoO 3– δ with partial oxidation of the Co cation owing to electron transfer from Co to Mo. Together with these synergistic effects, the electrochemical activities are significantly improved for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. In the overall water splitting operation, the heterostructure showed excellent stability at the high current density of 100 mA cm −2 over 1,000 h, which is exceptionally better than the stability of the state-of-the-art platinum and iridium oxide couple.

Metal-based transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) are attractive candidates for application in indium tin oxide (ITO)-free solar cells due to their excellent electrical conductivity and cost effectiveness. In perovskite solar cells (PSCs), metal-induced degradation with the perovskite layer leads to various detrimental effects, deteriorating the device performance and stability. Here, we introduce a novel flexible hybrid TCE consisting of a Cu grid-embedded polyimide film and a graphene capping layer, named GCEP, which exhibits excellent mechanical and chemical stability as well as desirable optoelectrical properties. We demonstrated the critical role of graphene as a protection layer to prevent metal-induced degradation and halide diffusion between the electrode and perovskite layer; the performance of the flexible PSCs fabricated with GCEP was comparable to that of their rigid ITO-based counterparts and also exhibited outstanding mechanical and chemical stability. This work provides an effective strategy to design mechanically and chemically robust ITO-free metal-assisted TCE platforms in PSCs.

An annealing-free process is considered as a technological advancement for the development of flexible (or wearable) organic electronic devices, which can prevent the distortion of substrates and damage to the active components of the device and simplify the overall fabrication process to increase the industrial applications. Owing to its outstanding electrical, optical, and mechanical properties, graphene is seen as a promising material that could act as a transparent conductive electrode for flexible optoelectronic devices. Owing to their high transparency and electron mobility, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NP) are attractive and promising for their application as charge transporting materials for low-temperature processes in organic solar cells (OSCs), particularly because most charge transporting materials require annealing treatments at elevated temperatures. In this study, graphene/annealing-free ZnO-NP hybrid materials were developed for inverted OSC by successfully integrating ZnO-NP on the hydrophobic surface of graphene, thus aiming to enhance the applicability of graphene as a transparent electrode in flexible OSC systems. Chemical, optical, electrical, and morphological analyses of ZnO-NPs showed that the annealing-free process generates similar results to those provided by the conventional annealing process. The approach was effectively applied to graphene-based inverted OSCs with notable power conversion efficiencies of 8.16% and 7.41% on the solid and flexible substrates, respectively, which promises the great feasibility of graphene for emerging optoelectronic device applications.

Two-dimensional Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) phase perovskite is gaining increasing attention for passivating the defects of the bulk absorber layer in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, owing to its anisotropic structural features,...