Fully spray-coated ITO-free organic solar cells for low-cost power generation

We report on cost-effective ITO-free organic solar cells (OSCs) fabricated by a spray deposition method. All solution-processable layers of solar cells—a highly conductive poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) layer and a photoactive layer based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and 1-(3-methoxycarbonyl)-propyl-1-phenyl-(6,6)C61 (PCBM)—were spray-coated. PEDOT:PSS anode films with various thicknesses were prepared by controlling the spray deposition time. The transmittance and sheet resistance of PEDOT:PSS anodes were varied from 89.0% to 67.4% and from 358 to 63.3 Ω/squares, respectively, corresponding to an increase in film thickness. The best device exhibited a high power conversion efficiency of 2.17% under 100 mW cm−2 illumination with air mass (AM) 1. 5 global (G) condition. More importantly, the efficiency of the fully spray-coated OSC with the PEDOT:PSS anode was comparable to that of conventional ITO-based devices, demonstrating the feasibility of fabricating all-spray-deposited OSCs without a conventional spin-coating method and the possibility of replacing the costly vacuum-deposited indium tin oxide (ITO) with highly conductive polymer films fabricated by inexpensive spray deposition techniques.