Organic photovoltaic cells fabricated on a SnOx/Ag/SnOx multilayer transparent conducting electrode

Abstract

Transparent conducting multilayer structured electrode of a few nm Ag layer embedded in tin oxide thin film SnOx/Ag/SnOx was fabricated on a glass by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The multilayer of the SnOx(40 nm)/Ag(11 nm)/SnOx(40 nm) electrode shows the maximum optical transmittance of 87.3% at 550 nm and a quite low electrical resistivity of 6.5x10(-5) Omega cm, and the corresponding figure of merit (T-10/R-S) is equivalent to 3.6x10(-2) Omega(-1). A normal organic photovoltaic (OPV) structure of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrene sulfonate)/polythiophene: phenyl-C60-butyric acid methyl ester/Al was fabricated on glass/SnOx/Ag/SnOx to examine the compatibility of OPV as a transparent conducting electrode. Measured characteristic values of open circuit voltage of 0.62 V, saturation current of 8.11 mA/cm(2) and fill factor of 0.54 are analogous to 0.63 V, 8.37 mA/cm(2) and 0.58 of OPV on commercial glass/indium tin oxide (ITO) respectively. A resultant power conversion efficiency of 2.7% is also very comparable with the 3.09% of the same OPV structure on the commercial ITO glass as a reference, and which reveals that SnOx/Ag/SnOx can be appropriate to OPV solar cells as a sound transparent conducting electrode. (C) 2012 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.