Efficient organic solar cells with a printed p-i-n stack enabled by an azeotrope-processed self-assembled monolayer

Gengxin Du, Wenlin Jiang, Nan Zhang, Yiwen Wang, Ming Liu, Tingfeng Lei, Yidan An, Lingyi Ke, Chengda Ge, Francis R. Lin*, Alex K.-Y. Jen*, Hin-Lap Yip*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are key in enhancing the charge extraction interface of organic solar cells (OSCs), recently hitting a 20% power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, it is very challenging to achieve a uniform coating of ultra-thin amphiphilic SAMs on rough ITO substrates, especially for large-area solution processing. Here, we introduce a novel method employing azeotrope ink for scalable printing of SAM on an ITO surface. The unique solvent combination with different polarities in the azeotrope not only stabilizes the SAM molecules but also ensures controllable solvent evaporation rates. This facilitates the formation of a high-quality SAM to support the subsequent deposition of fully printed p-i-n architecture devices, with the SAM serving as the hole-selective layer. The optimized devices achieved impressive power conversion efficiencies of 18.89% for 0.04 cm2 devices and 17.76% for 1 cm2 devices, underlining the potential of using azeotrope-assisted SAM printing as a scalable method for fabricating efficient and durable OSCs. © 2025 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)799-806
Number of pages8
JournalEnergy and Environmental Science
Volume18
Issue number2
Online published28 Nov 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jan 2025

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Grant Council (RGC) of Hong Kong (GRF No. 11307323), the NSFC/RGC Collaborative Research Scheme (No. CRS_CityU104/23) and the Seed Collaborative Research Fund (No. SCRF/0069) provided by the State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution at City University of Hong Kong. F. R. L. was supported by the RGC under HKPDFS (No. CityU PDFS2122-1S06).

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