Comparisons of the Mechanical Behaviors of Poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and ITO on Flexible Substrates

ABSTRACTIndium Tin Oxide (ITO) has been widely used as a Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) layer in the photovoltaic solar technology because of its excellent electrical and optical properties. However, ITO is brittle, and its conductivity decreases significantly as the ITO films are exposed to stretching or bending strains especially in flexible/foldable solar cell applications. The cracks in ITO appear at very low strains which might cause failure in the conductive layer because of the combination of a very thin film of brittle ceramic material applied to a polymer substrate. Poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene), abbreviated PEDOT, is of increasing interest as a competitive candidate to ITO. PEDOT has found its way in many applications such as transparent electrode materials and transparent conductive layers in photovoltaic solar cells. In this work, the mechanical behavior of PEDOT was studied under high cycle bending fatigue in which the effects of bending diameter and bending frequency were considered and compared to ITO. High magnification optical images were used to study cracking in the PEDOT as well as the ITO layers. In flexible solar cells, the web will be exposed to folding/bending many times during manufacturing and installation. Therefore, the thin film substrate structure will be exposed to cyclic loading cyclic tensile and compressive strains. Therefore, this work was designed to mechanically fatigue the structure and study its behavior. It was found that bending diameters as well as material (PEDOT or ITO) have a great influence on the electrical conductivity of the thin films.

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Characteristics of AZO thin films prepared at various Al target input current deposited on PET substrate

Modern Physics Letters B ◽

10.1142/s0217984915400278 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 29 (06n07) ◽

pp. 1540027

Author(s):

Yun-Hae Kim ◽

Chang-Wook Park ◽

Jin-Woo Lee ◽

Dong Myung Lee

Keyword(s):

Indium Tin Oxide ◽

Electrode Materials ◽

Visible Spectrum ◽

Transparent Conductive Oxide ◽

Transparent Electrode ◽

Input Current ◽

Light Transmittance ◽

Environmental Pollution Problem ◽

Materials Used ◽

Pet Substrate

Transparent conductive oxide is a thin film to be used in numerous applications throughout the industry in general. Transparent electrode materials used in these industries are in need of light transmittance with excellent high and low electrical characteristics, substances showing the most excellent physical properties while satisfying all the characteristics such as indium tin oxide film. However, reserves of indium are very small, there is an environmental pollution problem. So the study of zinc oxide ( ZnO ) is actively carried out in an alternative material. This study analyzed the characteristics by using a direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering system. The electric and optical properties of these films were studied by Hall measurement and optical spectroscopy, respectively. When the Al target input current is 2 mA and 4 mA, it demonstrates about 80% transmittance in the range of the visible spectrum. Also, when Al target input current was 6 mA, sheet resistance was the smallest on PET substrate. The minimum resistivity is 3.96×10-3 ohm/sq.

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Direct comparison of atomic layer deposition and sputtering of In2O3:H used as transparent conductive oxide layer in CuIn1−xGaxSe2 thin film solar cells

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells ◽

10.1016/j.solmat.2016.07.012 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 157 ◽

pp. 757-764 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Jan Keller ◽

Asim Aijaz ◽

Fredrik Gustavsson ◽

Tomas Kubart ◽

Lars Stolt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Atomic Layer Deposition ◽

Oxide Layer ◽

Atomic Layer ◽

Transparent Conductive Oxide ◽

Thin Film Solar Cells ◽

Layer Deposition ◽

Conductive Oxide

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ZnO transparent conductive oxide for thin film silicon solar cells

10.1117/12.843511 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

T. Söderström ◽

D. Dominé ◽

A. Feltrin ◽

M. Despeisse ◽

F. Meillaud ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Transparent Conductive Oxide ◽

Silicon Solar Cells ◽

Thin Film Silicon ◽

Conductive Oxide

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Cost effective synthesis Co9S8/Ni9S8 loaded on nitrogen doped porous carbons high efficiency counter electrode materials for liquid thin film solar cells

Electrochimica Acta ◽

10.1016/j.electacta.2021.139441 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 139441

Author(s):

Kaifeng Zhao ◽

Youwei Zhao ◽

Menghui Hao ◽

Xiaoting Li ◽

Shuang Liu ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Counter Electrode ◽

Electrode Materials ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Cost Effective ◽

Thin Film Solar Cells ◽

Porous Carbons ◽

Nitrogen Doped ◽

Effective Synthesis

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Effects of highly conductive PH1000 anode in combination with ethylene glycol additive and H2SO4 immersion treatments on photovoltaic performance and photostability of polymer solar cells

Journal of Materials Chemistry C ◽

10.1039/c8tc02467g ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (36) ◽

pp. 9734-9741 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Zhiyong Liu ◽

Ning Wang

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Ethylene Glycol ◽

Polymer Solar Cells ◽

Photovoltaic Performance ◽

Transparent Electrode ◽

Styrene Sulfonate ◽

Poly Styrene Sulfonate

In this study, we have fabricated efficient polymer solar cells (PSCs) by introducing a highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylene dioxy-thiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PH1000) thin film treated with a combination of ethylene glycol (EG) additive and H2SO4 solution immersion as a transparent electrode (PH1000–EG–H2SO4).

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Analysis of Defects and Surface Roughness on the Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) Intrinsic Thin Film for Solar Cells

Materials Science Forum ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/msf.966.398 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 966 ◽

pp. 398-403

Author(s):

Yoyok Cahyono ◽

Novita Dwi Purnamasari ◽

Mochamad Zainuri ◽

Suminar Pratapa ◽

Darminto

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Surface Roughness ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Band Gap ◽

Indium Tin Oxide ◽

Energy Band ◽

Thin Layers ◽

Oxide Glass ◽

Energy Band Gap ◽

Hydrogen Dilution

Effect of defect - through observation of energy absorption Urbach, on deposition rate, energy band gap, and surface roughness of intrinsic thin film are investigated using Radio Frequency Plasma Enhance Chemical Vapor Deposition (RF-PECVD). Films are grown on ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) glass substrate. Analysis of energy band gap is conducted to determine changes in the structure of a thin film of a-Si:H. Energy band gap is important to determine the portion of the spectrum of sunlight that is absorbed solar cells. From the characterization using UV-Vis spectrometer and the Tauc’s plot method, the width of the resulting energy band gap is greater if the hydrogen dilution is increased. It can be shown that the increase of the hydrogen dilution, will increase the energy band gap, and the surface roughness of thin layers. Instead, the improvement of the hydrogen dilution decrease the rate of deposition and Urbach energy. It is estimated that with greater hydrogen dilution, an intrinsic thin film of a-Si:H is more conductive for more reduction in residual of band tail defects or dangling bond defects.

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Enhanced electrical conductivity of transparent electrode using metal microfiber networks for gridless thin-film solar cells

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells ◽

10.1016/j.solmat.2019.109998 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 200 ◽

pp. 109998 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Dae-Hyung Cho ◽

Hong Seok Jo ◽

Woo-Jung Lee ◽

Tae-Gun Kim ◽

Byungha Shin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Electrical Conductivity ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Transparent Electrode ◽

Thin Film Solar Cells

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Application of ALD-Al2O3 in CdS/CdTe Thin-Film Solar Cells

Energies ◽

10.3390/en12061123 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 1123 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Guanggen Zeng ◽

Xia Hao ◽

Shengqiang Ren ◽

Lianghuan Feng ◽

Qionghua Wang

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Solar Cells ◽

Atomic Layer ◽

Transparent Conductive Oxide ◽

Buffer Layers ◽

Thin Film Solar Cells ◽

Window Layer ◽

Cdte Thin Film ◽

Cell Conversion ◽

Al2o3 Films

The application of thinner cadmium sulfide (CdS) window layer is a feasible approach to improve the performance of cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin film solar cells. However, the reduction of compactness and continuity of thinner CdS always deteriorates the device performance. In this work, transparent Al2O3 films with different thicknesses, deposited by using atomic layer deposition (ALD), were utilized as buffer layers between the front electrode transparent conductive oxide (TCO) and CdS layers to solve this problem, and then, thin-film solar cells with a structure of TCO/Al2O3/CdS/CdTe/BC/Ni were fabricated. The characteristics of the ALD-Al2O3 films were studied by UV–visible transmittance spectrum, Raman spectroscopy, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The light and dark J–V performances of solar cells were also measured by specific instrumentations. The transmittance measurement conducted on the TCO/Al2O3 films verified that the transmittance of TCO/Al2O3 were comparable to that of single TCO layer, meaning that no extra absorption loss occurred when Al2O3 buffer layers were introduced into cells. Furthermore, due to the advantages of the ALD method, the ALD-Al2O3 buffer layers formed an extremely continuous and uniform coverage on the substrates to effectively fill and block the tiny leakage channels in CdS/CdTe polycrystalline films and improve the characteristics of the interface between TCO and CdS. However, as the thickness of alumina increased, the negative effects of cells were gradually exposed, especially the increase of the series resistance (Rs) and the more serious “roll-over” phenomenon. Finally, the cell conversion efficiency (η) of more than 13.0% accompanied by optimized uniformity performances was successfully achieved corresponding to the 10 nm thick ALD-Al2O3 thin film.

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