TY - JOUR
T1 - Metal-electrode-free Window-like Organic Solar Cells with p-Doped Carbon Nanotube Thin-film Electrodes
AU - Jeon, Il
AU - Delacou, Clement
AU - Kaskela, Antti
AU - Kauppinen, Esko I.
AU - Maruyama, Shigeo
AU - Matsuo, Yutaka
PY - 2016/8/16
Y1 - 2016/8/16
N2 - Organic solar cells are flexible and inexpensive, and expected to have a wide range of applications. Many transparent organic solar cells have been reported and their success hinges on full transparency and high power conversion efficiency. Recently, carbon nanotubes and graphene, which meet these criteria, have been used in transparent conductive electrodes. However, their use in top electrodes has been limited by mechanical difficulties in fabrication and doping. Here, expensive metal top electrodes were replaced with high-performance, easy-to-transfer, aerosol-synthesized carbon nanotubes to produce transparent organic solar cells. The carbon nanotubes were p-doped by two new methods: HNO 3 doping via 'sandwich transfer', and MoO x thermal doping via 'bridge transfer'. Although both of the doping methods improved the performance of the carbon nanotubes and the photovoltaic performance of devices, sandwich transfer, which gave a 4.1% power conversion efficiency, was slightly more effective than bridge transfer, which produced a power conversion efficiency of 3.4%. Applying a thinner carbon nanotube film with 90% transparency decreased the efficiency to 3.7%, which was still high. Overall, the transparent solar cells had an efficiency of around 50% that of non-transparent metal-based solar cells (7.8%).
AB - Organic solar cells are flexible and inexpensive, and expected to have a wide range of applications. Many transparent organic solar cells have been reported and their success hinges on full transparency and high power conversion efficiency. Recently, carbon nanotubes and graphene, which meet these criteria, have been used in transparent conductive electrodes. However, their use in top electrodes has been limited by mechanical difficulties in fabrication and doping. Here, expensive metal top electrodes were replaced with high-performance, easy-to-transfer, aerosol-synthesized carbon nanotubes to produce transparent organic solar cells. The carbon nanotubes were p-doped by two new methods: HNO 3 doping via 'sandwich transfer', and MoO x thermal doping via 'bridge transfer'. Although both of the doping methods improved the performance of the carbon nanotubes and the photovoltaic performance of devices, sandwich transfer, which gave a 4.1% power conversion efficiency, was slightly more effective than bridge transfer, which produced a power conversion efficiency of 3.4%. Applying a thinner carbon nanotube film with 90% transparency decreased the efficiency to 3.7%, which was still high. Overall, the transparent solar cells had an efficiency of around 50% that of non-transparent metal-based solar cells (7.8%).
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84982238968&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/srep31348
DO - 10.1038/srep31348
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84982238968
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 6
SP - 1
EP - 9
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
M1 - 31348
ER -