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Demonstration of the portability of porous microstructure architecture to indium-doped ZnO electron selective layer for enhanced light scattering in inverted organic photovoltaics

  • Original Paper: Sol-gel and hybrid materials for optical, photonic and optoelectronic applications
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Abstract

We propose and demonstrate the incorporation of porous microstructures on indium-doped zinc oxide (IZO) electron selective layer in inverted organic photovoltaics (OPV). Porosity was induced in the IZO layer with the addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG) organic template at the optimal IZO/PEG ratio of 4:1. When compared to the OPV device with non-porous IZO, the device employing porous IZO showed a 16 % improvement in current density and a 13 % improvement in efficiency. This is primarily due to the increased light scattering as substantiated by the haze factor studies. This PEG assisted method of introducing microporous structure is therefore shown to be compatible with the doped interlayer and is thus a portable method of enhancing light scattering in OPV devices.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Singapore National Research Foundation under Grant Nos. NRF-CRP-6-2010-2 and NRF-RF-2009-09, the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) SERC under Grant Nos. 092 101 0057 and 112 120 2009, the New Initiative Fund and Joint Singapore-German Research Projects from Nanyang Technological University, A*STAR SERC TSRP Grant (Grant #102 170 0137) and IMRE exploratory Project (Grant # IMRE/14-1C0247).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LUMINOUS! Center of Excellence for Semiconductor Lighting and Displays, TPI- The Photonics Institute, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Amoolya Nirmal, Xiaowei Sun & Hilmi Volkan Demir

  2. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, 117602, Singapore

    Aung Ko Ko Kyaw

  3. School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Hilmi Volkan Demir

  4. Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, UNAM-National Nanotechnology Research Center, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara, 06800, Turkey

    Hilmi Volkan Demir

  5. Department of Physics, UNAM-National Nanotechnology Research Center, Bilkent University, Bilkent, Ankara, 06800, Turkey

    Hilmi Volkan Demir

Authors
  1. Amoolya Nirmal
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  2. Aung Ko Ko Kyaw
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  3. Xiaowei Sun
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  4. Hilmi Volkan Demir
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hilmi Volkan Demir.

Appendix

Appendix

OPVs with IZO electron selective layers spin-coated at various speeds and annealed at a range of temperatures were analyzed (Tables 3, 4).

Table 3 Device parameters of OPV devices with IZO electron selective layer at different spin speeds
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Table 4 Device parameters of OPV devices with IZO electron selective layer annealed at different temperatures
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From these optimization studies, IZO layer processed at spin-coating speed of 2500 rpm and annealing temperature of 150 °C was found to exhibit the best performance. Investigations proved that slower active layer spin speeds (800–1000 rpm) resulted in the better performance of porous IZO devices (Table 5).

Table 5 Device parameters of OPV devices with porous IZO electron selective layer with active layer spin-coated at different spin speeds
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SEM images of porous ZnO from our previous studies (Fig. 8) [34]. The degree of porosity for porous ZnO with ZnO/PEG ratio of 4:1 is higher when compared with porous IZO with IZO/PEG ratio of 4:1(Fig. 3b).

Fig. 8
figure 8

SEM images of porous ZnO layer (scale bar is 20 µm)

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Nirmal, A., Kyaw, A.K.K., Sun, X. et al. Demonstration of the portability of porous microstructure architecture to indium-doped ZnO electron selective layer for enhanced light scattering in inverted organic photovoltaics. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 78, 613–620 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-016-3999-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-016-3999-y

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