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Low-temperature photo-activated inorganic electron transport layers for flexible inverted polymer solar cells

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Abstract

A simple and versatile route of forming sol–gel-derived metal oxide n-type electron transport layers (ETLs) for flexible inverted polymer solar cells (PSCs) is proposed using low-temperature photochemical activation process. The photochemical activation, which is induced by deep ultraviolet irradiation on sol–gel films, allows formation of metal oxide n-type ETLs such as zinc oxide (ZnO) and indium gallium zinc oxide films at a low temperature. Compared to poly(3-hexylthiophene)/phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester inverted PSCs with thermally annealed ZnO ETLs (optimized efficiency of 3.26 ± 0.03 %), the inverted PSCs with photo-activated ZnO ETLs showed an improved efficiency of 3.60 ± 0.02 %. The enhanced photovoltaic property is attributed to efficient charge collection from low overall series resistance and high surface area-to-geometric area ratio by the photo-activated ZnO ETLs.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No. NRF-2013R1A2A2A01006404) and the Inter-ER Cooperation Projects of Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT) funded by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Flexible and Printable Electronics, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, 156-756, Korea

    Jung-Wook Lee & Soo-Hyoung Lee

  2. School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering and SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, 440-746, Korea

    Yong-Hoon Kim

  3. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, 156-756, Korea

    Sung Kyu Park

Authors
  1. Jung-Wook Lee
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  2. Soo-Hyoung Lee
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  3. Yong-Hoon Kim
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Correspondence to Yong-Hoon Kim or Sung Kyu Park.

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Lee, JW., Lee, SH., Kim, YH. et al. Low-temperature photo-activated inorganic electron transport layers for flexible inverted polymer solar cells. Appl. Phys. A 116, 2087–2093 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-014-8407-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-014-8407-2

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