Foldable perovskite solar cells and modules enabled by mechanically engineered ultrathin indium-tin-oxide electrodes

Unsoo Kim^a^,^b^,^c, Minsung Han^a^,^b, Jihun Jang^c, Jooyeon Shin^a^,^b, MIncheol Park^a^,^b, Junseop Byeon^a^,^b, Mansoo Choi^a^,^b^,^c

^aSeoul National University, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

^bSeoul National University, Global Frontier Center for Multiscale Energy Systems, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

^cFrontier Energy Solution

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
Proceedings of Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP23)

Kobe, Japan, 2023 January 22nd - 24th

Organizers: Seigo Ito, Hideo Ohkita and Atsushi Wakamiya

Poster, Unsoo Kim, 080
Publication date: 21st November 2022

Flexible perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have been studied for various applications, such as wearable devices and unmanned aerospace systems, with their advantageous flexible and lightweight feature. Flexible transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) is the essential part of the device for the PSCs with both high power conversion efficiency (PCE) and flexibility. However, there has been few reports on flexible PSCs with both satisfactory solar cell performance and flexibility at the same time, mainly due to absence of adequate flexible TCEs.

Here, we develop mechanically engineered indium-tin-oxide-based ultrathin (~10 μm) TCE on for highly efficient and foldable perovskite solar cells and modules. By applying an AlO_x layer onto flexible substrate, the substate rolling due to ITO sputtering process is significantly attenuated, resulting in the ultrathin TCE in a stable free-standing state. The electrical conductivity is enhanced with the aid of metal mesh incorporation, and the resulting ultrathin TCE showed optoelectronic properties comparable to commercial high-performing flexible TCEs, while showing outstanding flexibility against bending radius of 0.5 mm.

Champion perovskite solar cells and modules using ultrathin TCEs achieve PCEs of 19.16% (0.078 cm²) and 13.26% (16 cm²), respectively, outperforming reference devices on commercial flexible TCEs. Perovskite solar modules using ultrathin TCE exhibit remarkable mechanical durability maintaining 100% and 92% of initial efficiencies after 10,000 cycles of bending tests with a radius of 1 mm and 0.5 mm, respectively, which is unprecedented on module scale. Moreover, a module on ultrathin TCE is 11- and 350-fold lighter than the modules on commercial flexible and glass based TCE, respectively, showcasing its ultra-lightweight feature. This work is believed to contribute for the commercialization of flexible PSCs with both high performance and flexibility.

Acknowledgements:

Unsoo Kim and Minsung Han contributed equally to this work. This research was supported by the Defense Challengeable Future Technology Program of the Agency for Defense Development, Republic of Korea. This work has been supported by the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) (20016588) funded by the Korea government.

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