Indium tin oxide-free semi-transparent inverted polymer solar cells using conducting polymer as both bottom and top electrodes

Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is investigated as a transparent cathode to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) in inverted polymer solar cells. Increasing the thickness of the PEDOT:PSS electrode leads to a reduction in transparency and sheet resistance which lowers the photocurrent but increases the fill factor of the solar cells. The offset of photocurrent and fill factor as the thickness is increased leads to a saturation of the power conversion efficiency to ∼3%. These electrodes were applied to flexible substrates showing similar device performance to glass based devices. Cyclic bending test of these flexible polymer electrodes show improved conversion efficiency retention (∼92%) when compared to flexible ITO based electrodes (∼50%) after 300 bend cycles. In addition to using PEDOT:PSS as a cathode replacement for ITO in inverted solar cells, its use as a semi-transparent anode replacement to Ag is also examined. Semi-transparent inverted solar cells fabricated with ITO as the cathode and PEDOT:PSS as the top anode electrode were demonstrated showing efficiencies of ∼2.51% while replacement of both ITO and Ag with PEDOT:PSS as both the cathode and anode show efficiencies of ∼0.47%. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.