Intrinsically Stretchable Organic Solar Cells with Efficiencies of over 11%

Abstract

Stretchable organic solar cells (SOSCs) are attracting considerable attention as an off-grid power source for wearable electronics, including biosensors, electronic skins, and stretchable displays. Although SOSCs possess promising properties such as high power-per-weight output and strong durability under repetitive tensile strains, they remain proof of concept, as they do not satisfy the required performance for wearable electronics. Reconciling high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and reasonable stretchability is a difficult task. This study reports intrinsically SOSCs of over 11% by integrating multiple stretchable layers with strong bindings. Our SOSC achieved impressive stretchability; it maintained over 74% of the initial PCE when subjected to 10% strain for 1,000 cycles. Particularly, high-performance and mechanical endurance demonstrate that SOSCs are one step closer toward practical utilization in wearable electronics.

High‐Performance, Flexible NO2 Chemiresistors Achieved by Design of Imine‐Incorporated n‐Type Conjugated Polymers

“…To demonstrate the feasibility of IM‐ x /P‐ y in flexible sensor applications, we fabricated a flexible and stretchable device as follows. We used a mechanically stable thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) substrate [ 63 ] (thickness ≈ 300 µm) with Cu/Au bilayer electrodes (5 nm/100 nm) ( Figure a). The polymer solutions of IM‐0.1/P‐1.0 were drop‐casted on the prepared poly(sodium 4‐styrenesulfonate) (PSS)‐coated glass; Thereafter, the polymer films were floated on water by dissolving the PSS sacrificial layer and transferred onto the TPU substrates.…”

Developing the Nondevelopable: Creating Curved‐Surface Electronics from Nonstretchable Devices

“…[55] Because of the complicated structure of photovoltaics, however, attaining 2D curved structures has been challenging. [56] Most work has achieved nondevelopable arrays by implementing familiar techniques from soft robotics: using arrays of rigid devices connected by curved or stretchable interconnects (i.e., island-bridge structure), [57,58] using intrinsically stretchable or one-time deformable materials, [24,59,60] or using compression-induced wrinkling [61][62][63][64][65] to permit stretching that allows these devices to conform to 2D curvature. However, these devices suffer from complicated fabrication procedures, poor surface coverage, low efficiency, and stored strain energy that can lead to delamination [25] or damage.…”

“…Recent work has demonstrated stretchable organic solar cells capable of maintaining 74% of their initial efficiency even after undergoing 10% uniaxial strain. [ 24 ]…”

“…Recent work has demonstrated stretchable organic solar cells capable of maintaining 74% of their initial efficiency even after undergoing 10% uniaxial strain. [24] However, the conformability of these circuits to surfaces with complex curvature has been limited. While devices such as solar cells and displays require a high areal fill ratio (i.e., the effective area of the device divided by the total area of the target surface) and a high resolution (i.e., the number of devices divided by the total area of the target surface), no technology can simultaneously satisfy these geometrical constraints, and achieve a high performance on arbitrarily curved surfaces.…”

Strain-insensitive naphthalene-diimide-based conjugated polymers through sequential regularity control

“…The rapid progress in structural design of conjugated polymers (CPs) has improved the performance of organic optoelectronic devices such as field-effect transistors (FETs), [1][2][3] solar cells, [4][5][6] light-emitting diodes, [7][8][9] and memory devices. [10][11][12] In order to realize wearable electronics, tremendous efforts have been dedicated to exploiting CP with a good balance between its mobility and stretchability to achieve high-performance stretchable electronics.…”