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Inkjet-Printed Organic Solar Cells and Perovskite Solar Cells: Progress, Challenges, and Prospect

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Abstract

In recent years, the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs) and perovskite (PVSCs) has increased to over 19% and 25%, respectively. Meanwhile, the long-term stability of OSCs and PVSCs was also significantly improved with a better understanding of the degradation mechanism and the improvement of materials, morphology, and interface stability. As both the efficiency and lifetime of solar cells are approaching the commercialization limit, fabrication methods for large-area OSCs and PVSCs that can be directly transferred from lab to fab become essential to promote the industrialization of OSCs and PVSCs. Compared with the coating methods, inkjet printing is a mature industrial technology with the advantages of random digital patterning, excellent precision and fast printing speed, which is considered to have great potential in solar cell fabrication. Many efforts have been devoted to developing inkjet-printed OSCs and PVSCs, and much progress has been achieved in the last few years. In this review, we first introduced the working principle of inkjet printing, the rheology requirements of inks, and the behaviors of the droplets. We then summarized the recent research progresses of the inkjet-printed OSCs and PVSCs to facilitate knowledge transfer between the two technologies. In the end, we gave a perspective on inkjet-printed OSCs and PVSCs.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, CAS (No. 2019317), CAS-CSIRO joint project (No. 121E32KYSB20190021) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, China

    Xing-Ze Chen, Qun Luo & Chang-Qi Ma

  2. i-Lab & Printable Electronics Research Center, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Xing-Ze Chen, Qun Luo & Chang-Qi Ma

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  1. Xing-Ze Chen
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  2. Qun Luo
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Correspondence to Qun Luo or Chang-Qi Ma.

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Biographies

Qun Luo received her Ph.D. form Zhejiang University in 2011. Then she worked as a postdoc at Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, CAS. Currently she is a professor at Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics. Her research interests include printable materials and interface engineering in flexible and large-area printed solar cells.

Chang-Qi Ma received his Ph.D. at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS. After that, he worked as a postdoc at Heriot-Watt University (UK), and then he joined University of Ulm in 2004 as a Humboldt fellow. From January 2007 to May 2011, he did his Habilitation at Institute of Organic Chemistry II and Advanced Materials, Ulm University. In June 2011, he joined Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, CAS as a professor. His research focuses on printing processing and stability of organic solar cells.

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Chen, XZ., Luo, Q. & Ma, CQ. Inkjet-Printed Organic Solar Cells and Perovskite Solar Cells: Progress, Challenges, and Prospect. Chin J Polym Sci 41, 1169–1197 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-023-2961-z

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