Malleability and Pliability of Silk‐Derived Electrodes for Efficient Deformable Perovskite Solar Cells

Abstract

For the fabrication of deformable electronic devices, electrodes that are robust against repeated bending, twisting, stretching, folding, reversible plasticizing, and that maintain electrical conductivity, and so on, are required. Malleable and pliable silk‐derived electrodes are fabricated to enable the shape deformation of perovskite solar cells. Moisture‐driven silk‐derived electrodes show reversible plasticization with malleability and pliability, realizing diverse deformation from simple operations (including bending, folding, stretching, etc.) to complicated structures (including flower, bowknot, and paper crane). It is worth noting that the silk‐derived electrodes maintain electrical conductivity (15.8 Ω sq−1) compared to their initial value (15 Ω sq−1) even after suffering from reversible mechanical plasticization of complicated structures. Deformable perovskite solar cells are fabricated with the silk‐derived electrodes and achieve a power conversion efficiency of 10.40%. The devices maintain 92% of the initial efficiency after 1000 bends at a curvature radius of 2.5 mm. The power does not decline at 50% strain and keeps more than 60% of the initial value after stretching for 50 cycles. Malleability and pliability of silk‐derived electrodes benefit the realization of stretchable perovskite solar cells and deformable electronic devices.

The Power of Silk Technology for Energy Applications

“…In addition, the photovoltaic cell obtained a respectable power conversion efficiency of 10.4% and there was no decrease in efficiency after stretching the device 10 times (with strains of 50%) with the device showing little deterioration of the perovskite layer in SEM images. [142] However, when the device was stretched with 50 stretching cycles, the power conversion efficiency was reduced by up to 60% with the perovskite layer showing significant deterioration in SEM images. [142] Still, the work here marks an important seminal step in malleable, flexible silk-based solar energy research.…”

“…Their work focuses on producing deformable, malleable silk-based perovskite solar cells using B. mori silk. [142] Combining silk fibroin and silver nanowires, the films were capable of deforming into a diverse range of structures from simple (bending, folding, and stretching) to complex origami (flower, bowknot, and paper crane) (Figure 8a). The malleable films could be deformed and subsequently recovered to their original shape through the exposure to water (Figure 8b,c).…”

“…The films showed similar sheet resistances in the undeformed and deformed state, indicating no significant loss of electrical conductivity during deformation. [142] These sheets could then be employed in photovoltaic cells using layers of PEDOT:PSS, perovskite (CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 ), phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), and Ag. These sandwiches were capable of simple bending and stretching without significant loss of function.…”

“…Red circles denote localized wrinkle deformations but no cracks or grain boundaries are present. Reproduced with permission [142]. Copyright 2020, Wiley.…”

Highly Flexible and Transparent Polylactic Acid Composite Electrode for Perovskite Solar Cells

“…The devices exhibited excellent mechanical stability. [ 34,35 ] These aforementioned works have laid a solid foundation for the development of biomass‐based F‐PSCs.…”