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Bonner, J. C., Piper, R. T., Bhandari, B., Allen, C. R., Bower, C. T., Ostendorf, M. A., Davis, M., Valdez, M., Lee, M., & Hsu, J. W. P. “Green” Fabrication of High-performance Transparent Conducting Electrodes by Blade Coating and Photonic Curing on PET for Perovskite Solar Cells. Materials and Sustainability. 2024. doi: Retrieved from https://test.sciltp.com/testj/matsus/article/view/530
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Article

“Green” Fabrication of High-performance Transparent Conducting Electrodes by Blade Coating and Photonic Curing on PET for Perovskite Solar Cells

Justin C. Bonner 1,†, Robert T. Piper 1,†, Bishal Bhandari 2, Cody R. Allen 2, Cynthia T. Bowers 3,4, Melinda A. Ostendorf 3,4, Matthew Davis 5, Marisol Valdez 6, Mark Lee 2 and Julia W. P. Hsu 1,∗

1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W Campbell Road, RL-10, Richardson, TX 75080, USA

2 Department of Physics, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W Campbell Road, Richardson, TX 75080, USA

3 Materials Characterization Facility at the Air Force Research Laboratory, 2941 Hobson Way, WPAFB, OH 45433, USA

4 UES, Inc., a BlueHalo Company, 4401 Dayton-Xenia Rd, Dayton, OH 45432, USA

5 Energy Materials Corporation, 1999 Lake Ave B82 Ste B304, Rochester, NY 14650, USA

6 Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W Campbell Road, Richardson, TX 75080, USA

* Correspondence: jwhsu@utdallas.edu

† These authors contributed equally to this work.

Received: 30 September 2024; Revised: 25 October 2024; Accepted: 30 October 2024; Published: 5 November 2024

 

Abstract: This study presents an innovative material processing approach to fabricate transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates using blade coating and photonic curing. The hybrid TCEs consist of a multiscale Ag network, combining silver metal bus lines and nanowires, overcoated by an indium zinc oxide layer, and then photonically cured. Blade coating ensures film uniformity and thickness control over large areas. Photonic curing, a non-thermal processing method with significantly lower carbon emissions, enhances the conductivity and transparency of the coated layers. Our hybrid TCEs achieve an average transmittance of (81 ± 0.4)% referenced to air ((90 ± 0.4)% referenced to the PET substrate) in the visible range, an average sheet resistance of (11 ± 0.5) Ω sq−1, and an average surface roughness of (4.3 ± 0.4) nm. We benchmark these values against commercial PET/TCE substrates. Mechanical durability tests demonstrate <3% change in resistance after 2000 bending cycles at a 1 in radius. The scalable potential of the hybrid TCE fabrication method is demonstrated by high uniformity and excellent properties in 7 in × 8 in large-area samples and by performing the photonic curing process at 11 m min−1. Furthermore, halide perovskite solar cells fabricated on these hybrid TCEs achieve average and champion power conversion efficiencies of (10.5 ± 1.0) % and 12.2%, respectively, and significantly outperform devices made on commercial PET/TCEs. This work showcases our approach as a viable pathway for high-speed “green” manufacturing of high-performance TCEs on PET substrates for flexible optoelectronic devices.

Keywords:

transparent conducting electrode photonic curing; roll-to-roll silver nanowires blade-coating “green” manufacturing

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