Publication date: 14th September 2021
In this presentation, we will talk about the development of organic solar cells on opaque steel substrates. The challenges in fabricating a solar cell device on steel substrates are two fold: minimizing the substrate roughness so that smooth interfaces between various layers can be formed and maximizing the transmission of light from top of the device with an electrode as transparent as possible. In addition, for commercial realization prospects, processing should be as simple as possible and utilize low temperature steps. In our work, we have addressed these challanges by adopting various approaches related to substrate planarization, optimization of carrier selective layers and maximiation of the transparency of top electrodes. The best performing cells demonstrate power conversion efficiencies of ~6% using PTB7:PCBM blend as an active layer.
Tata Steel Europe and Department of Science and Technology, APEX Grant, SUNRISE