Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2025 Conference (MATSUSSpring25)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsusspring.2025.687
Publication date: 16th December 2024
Flexible perovskite solar cells (f-PSCs) have the potential to revolutionize various applications, including IoT, portable and wearable electronics, and space technology, where flexibility, conformability, lightweight design, and a high power-to-weight ratio are highly desirable. In addition to their impressive efficiency (reaching up to 25%[1]) f-PSCs offer several other advantages: they are fabricated using abundant materials through cost-effective solution-based processes [2]. However, even more than their rigid glass counterparts, the long-term stability of f-PSCs remains a challenge due to both intrinsic and extrinsic factors [3]. Effective encapsulation is crucial for ensuring durability by protecting the devices from external elements such as moisture, water, and oxygen, without compromising their flexibility. Thermosetting polyurethanes (PUs) emerge as promising encapsulants due to their chemical inertness toward the perovskite layer and their ability to cure at room temperature directly on the PSC [4]. Additionally, minor structural modifications in PU precursors can enhance flexibility, barrier properties, and transparency. This study demonstrates the successful use of a low-cost thermosetting PU resin for encapsulating 1 cm² f-PSCs. Two encapsulation approaches were explored: one where PU is applied solely to the back (in contact with the metal electrode) and another where PU is applied to both the back and the front (on the PET substrate). While maintaining device flexibility as proved by bending tests, the dual-layer encapsulation strategy significantly improves stability under high humidity conditions (relative humidity >75%), achieving a T80 lifetime of over 550 hours (23 days). This represents a substantial improvement compared to unencapsulated devices, which exhibit a T80 of only 6 hours.
This work has been funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) project, PEROSKY Perovskite and other printable materials for energy application in space (no. 2018-1-R.0). This project (in the person of M.B. and C.B.) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 826013 (IMPRESSIVE). This publication reflects only the author’s views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. D.G., M.B. and C.B. acknowledge sup-port from Project CH4.0 under the MUR program “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2023–2027” (CUP D13C22003520001). DG acknowledges Decreto-Legge 6 maggio 2021, n. 59 (PNRR) for funding the PhD scholarship.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.