54 cm² Large‐Area Flexible Organic Solar Modules with Efficiency Above 13%

Abstract

Development of large‐area flexible organic solar cells (OSCs) is highly desirable for their practical applications. However, the efficiency of the large‐area flexible OSCs severely lags behind small‐area devices. Here, efficient large‐area flexible single cells with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.1% and 12.6% for areas of 6 and 10 cm2, and flexible modules with a PCE of 13.2% (54 cm2) based on poly(ethylene terephthalate)/Ag grid/silver nanowires (AgNWs):zinc‐chelated polyethylenimine (PEI‐Zn) composite electrodes are reported. The solution‐processed flexible transparent electrode of AgNWs:PEI‐Zn shows low surface roughness and good optoelectronic and mechanical properties. PEI‐Zn is conductive and optically transparent. It can adhere to and wrap the AgNWs under electrostatic interaction between the negatively charged surface (AgNWs) and positively charged protonated amine groups (in PEI‐Zn). It wraps the AgNWs networks and fills the void space to achieve a smooth surface. The flexible electrode is validated in both flexible OSCs and flexible quantum‐dots light‐emitting diodes (QLEDs). Small‐area flexible OSCs show a PCE of 16.1%, and flexible QLEDs show an external quantum efficiency of 13.3%. In the end, a flexible module is demonstrated to charge a mobile phone as a flexible power source (shown in Video S1, Supporting Information).

12.42% Monolithic 25.42 cm2 Flexible Organic Solar Cells Enabled by an Amorphous ITO‐Modified Metal Grid Electrode

“…Compared with the literature performance of large-area monolithic OSCs (Figure 5e and Table S3, Supporting Information), these performances of the 4.00, 9.00, and 25.42 cm 2 devices are among the highest PCE for the large-area single-junction OSCs with different dimensions, all references are listed in the Supporting Information. [12,14,30,31,35,36,45,[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73] www.advmat.de www.advancedsciencenews.com Adv. Mater.…”

“…[14] Recently, 13.2% efficiency of 54 cm 2 flexible OSCs module utilizing a Ag grid and AgNWs:PEI-Zn composite electrode was reported. [45] Though the high depth-to-width ratio ensured excellent conduction of the metal grid electrode, it also induced a high step around dozens to hundreds of nanometers between metal grid and blank plastic substrate, [31] resulting in poor uniformity and reproducibility of OSCs. Heterogeneity of conductivity and wettability between metal grid and the blank plastic substrate is also a drawback of metal grid electrode, which causes an intense influence on the coverage of upper modification layer or buffer layer.…”

“…d) The J-V curves obtained from the Fujian Metrology institute. e) PCE of flexibleOSCs with different dimensions, all references are listed in the Supporting Information [12,14,30,31,35,36,45,[61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73].…”

Recent Progress on Emerging Transparent Metallic Electrodes for Flexible Organic and Perovskite Photovoltaics

“…[ 199 ] It should be noted that this PCE is slightly lower than the highest PCE in small‐area flexible OSCs (16.61%) using a PEDOT electrode. [ 200 ] While it is well known that high PCEs in large‐area devices are much more challenging, it is encouraging to see the fast development of large‐area flexible OSCs and modules, with PCEs >13% reported recently in a 4 cm 2 flexible OSC [ 201 ] and a 54 cm 2 flexible organic solar module, [ 202 ] both based on AgNW. In general, studies using non‐Ag metal NWs are far fewer and the average performance tends to be lower.…”

High‐Efficiency ITO‐Free Organic Photovoltaics with Superior Flexibility and Upscalability

“…Thus, the upscaling of OPVs requires comprehensive optimizations on interface, morphology, and device geometry design. [34,35,37,[39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] Particularly, the interfacial contact has been demonstrated to affect the homogeneity or quality of films and the interfacial resistance, and these effects will be magnified on large scale, as demonstrated by Jeong et al [48] Though with the challenges mentioned above, rapid progress on large-area flexibility has been made. For example, a 1 cm 2 OPV device with 16% efficiency has been built on polyethylene naphthalate/ITO substrates.…”