Efficient "light-soaking"-free inverted organic solar cells with aqueous solution processed low-temperature ZnO electron extraction layers

Abstract

Low-temperature processes are unremittingly pursued in the fabrication of organic solar cells. The paper reports that the highly efficient and "light-soaking"-free inverted organic solar cell can be achieved by using ZnO thin films processed from the aqueous solution method at a low temperature. The inverted organic solar with an aqueous-processed ZnO thin film annealed at 150 C shows an efficiency of 3.79%. Even when annealed at a temperature as low as 80 C, the device still shows an efficiency of 3.71%. With the proper annealing temperature of 80 C, the flexible device, which shows an efficiency of 3.56%, is fabricated on PET. This flexible device still keeps the efficiency above 3.40% after bent for 1000 times with a curvature radius of 50 mm. In contrast, a low annealing temperature leads to an inferior device performance when the ZnO thin film is processed from the widely used sol-gel method. The device with sol-gel processed ZnO annealed at 150 C only shows a PCE of 1.3%. Furthermore, the device shows a strong "light-soaking" effect, which is not observed in the device containing an aqueous-processed ZnO thin film. Our results suggest that the adopted aqueous solution method is a more efficient low temperature technique, compared with the sol-gel method. © 2013 American Chemical Society.