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Increase in the efficiency and stability of large-area flexible organic photovoltaic modules via improved electrical contact

Nature Energy volume 9, pages 793–802 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Large-area flexible organic photovoltaic modules suffer from electrical shunt and poor electrical contact between adjacent subcells, causing efficiency and stability losses. Here we improve the performance of large-area flexible organic photovoltaic modules through suppressing electrical shunt and improving electrical contact. We embed large-area silver nanowire electrodes into polymer substrates to reduce surface roughness and therefore to suppress electrical shunt. We deposit chromium and silver lines between adjacent subcells to improve electrical contact. We show that chromium suppresses the aggregation of the silver film, increasing its laser fluence tolerance and retaining its conductance under thermal annealing, mechanical bending and illumination. These improvements enhance the photovoltaic efficiency and illumination stability of the flexible organic photovoltaic modules. Large-area flexible modules achieve certified efficiencies of 14.04% (active area: 41 cm2) and 13.10% (active area: 370 cm2, with an open-circuit voltage of 103.51 V) and retain 90.4 ± 2.3% of the initial efficiency after continuous illumination for 912 hours.

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Fig. 1: Structure and performance of large-area flexible OPV modules.
Fig. 2: Large-area AgNWs-em-PVA flexible transparent electrode.
Fig. 3: Laser etching fluence of active layer and electrode films.
Fig. 4: Film and device stability.

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The datasets analysed and generated during the current study are included in the paper and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 52273180, 51973074) and the special innovation funds of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics. We also thank the Analytical and Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology for providing the facilities to conduct characterizations. We acknowledge J. Hu, D. Xue and S. Wang at Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences for providing facilities and help on the measurement of LBIC mapping.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Xin Lu, Cong Xie, Yang Liu, Hui Zheng, Kai Feng, Zedong Xiong, Wanxia Wei & Yinhua Zhou

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  1. Xin Lu
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  3. Yang Liu
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Contributions

X.L. and Y.Z. conceived the idea. X.L and Y.L. fabricated the flexible large-area organic solar cells modules. X.L. and C.X. tested the large-area modules and performed the stability measurement of the large-area modules. X.L., H.Z. and K.F. performed the fabrication, measurement and optimization of flexible small-area solar cells. X.L. and Z.X. tested the laser ablation threshold of the films. X.L. and W.W. measured EQE. X.L. wrote the first draft of the paper. Y.Z. supervised the research and revised the paper. All the authors revised and approved the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yinhua Zhou.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information

Nature Energy thanks Weiwei Li, Chang-Zhi Li, Hae Jung Son and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–28 and Tables 1 and 2.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Data 1

Data for Supplementary Fig. 10.

Supplementary Data 2

Data for Supplementary Fig. 13a.

Supplementary Data 3

Data for Supplementary Fig. 14.

Supplementary Data 4

Data for Supplementary Fig. 18b.

Supplementary Data 5

Data for Supplementary Fig. 19.

Supplementary Data 6

Data for Supplementary Fig. 20.

Supplementary Data 7

Data for Supplementary Fig. 27.

Supplementary Data 8

Data for Supplementary Table 1.

Supplementary Data 9

Data for Supplementary Table 2.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Current–voltage data, histograms of efficiencies.

Source Data Fig. 2

Histograms of efficiencies.

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data, histograms of laser fluence.

Source Data Fig. 4

Statistical source data.

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Lu, X., Xie, C., Liu, Y. et al. Increase in the efficiency and stability of large-area flexible organic photovoltaic modules via improved electrical contact. Nat Energy 9, 793–802 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01501-1

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