Al-doped ZnO(AZO) has been used as an electron transport and hole blocking buffer layer in inverted organic solar cells(IOSCs). In this paper, the AZO morphology, optical and structural properties and IOSCs performance are investigated as a function of precursor solution concentration from 0.1 mol/L to 1.0 mol/L. We demonstrate that the device with 0.1 mol/L precursor concentration of AZO buffer layers enhances the short-circuit current and the fill factor of IOSCs simultaneously. The resulting device shows that the power conversion efficiency is improved by 35.6% relative to that of the 1.0 mol/L device, due to the improved surface morphology and transmittance(300–400 nm) of AZO buffer layer.
The properties of Al-doped Zn O(AZO) play an important role in the photovoltaic performance of inverted polymer solar cells(PSCs), which is used as electron transport and hole blocking buffer layers. In this work, we study the effects of Al-doping level in AZO on device performance in detail. Results indicate that the device performance intensely depends on the Al-doping level. The AZO thin films with Al-doping atomic percentage of 1.0% possess the best conductivity. The resulting solar cells show the enhanced short current density and the fill factor(FF) simultaneously, and the power conversion efficiency(PCE) is improved by 74%, which are attributed to the reduced carrier recombination and the optimized charge transport and extraction between AZO and the active layer.
The effects of annealing rate and morphology of sol–gel derived zinc oxide （ZnO） thin films on the performance of inverted polymer solar cells （IPSCs） are investigated. ZnO films with different morphologies are prepared at different annealing rates and used as the electron transport layers in IPSCs. The undulating morphologies of ZnO films fabricated at annealing rates of 10 ℃/min and 3 ℃/min each possess a rougher surface than that of the ZnO film fabricated at a fast annealing rate of 50 ℃/min. The ZnO films are characterized by atomic force microscopy （AFM）, optical transmittance measurements, and simulation. The results indicate that the ZnO film formed at 3 ℃/min possesses a good-quality contact area with the active layer. Combined with a moderate light-scattering, the resulting device shows a 16% improvement in power conversion efficiency compared with that of the rapidly annealed ZnO film device.
Transparent electrodes made of silver nanowires （Ag NWs） exhibit a higher flexibility than conventional indium tin oxide electrodes.For this reason,Ag NWs may find applications in future flexible electronic and optoelectronic devices.However,different optoelectronic devices have different specific requirements for Ag NWs.For example,the optical transmittance haze is an important but rarely studied aspect of Ag NW films.In this study,the optical transmittance and optical scattering of long （5-50 μm,L-NWs） and short （1-20 μm,S-NWs） Ag NW films were investigated.The L-NWs exhibited better optical transmission than the S-NWs,whereas the S-NWs exhibited better light-scattering properties than the L-NWs.Our results indicate that the L-NWs are suitable for touch-screen displays,whereas the S-NWs are better suited as transparent conductive films for solar cells.We analyzed the scattering ratio of forward-scattered light to backscattered light for both the L-NWs and S-NWs and discovered that the mesh size affected the scattering ratio.For longer wavelengths,a larger mesh yielded a higher backscattering ratio,whereas a smaller mesh yielded a lower backscattering ratio.We formulated an equation for calculating the reflection haze using the total reflection （Ag NWs/glass）,R and the reflection of glass,R0.The reflection haze of the S-NWs and L-NWs exhibited different trends in the visible-near-infrared region.An omnidirectional scattering model for the Ag NWs was used to evaluate the Ag NW scattering properties.The results of this study have great significance for the evaluation of the performance of Ag NWs in optoelectronic devices.
