Crossed sprays forming composite thin films and heterogeneous structures for the fabrication of an organic solar cell

Abstract

Nanomaterials and composite thin films at nanometer scales have been studied over decades as electron/hole transport layers and heterogeneous structures of organic solar cells using different manufacturing methods such as blade coating, spin coating, inkjet printing, and spray coating. The optoelectronic performances for fabricating thin-film devices on glass substrates involve the solid nanofilms' electrical and optical properties. Recently, research on composite nanofilms has progressed in pursuit of further enhancing these properties. This paper reports a crossed-spray deposition method to implement it using two atomizers. With the crossed sprays of hole transport layers (HTL) and photoactive layers (PL), the structured nanofilms with multiple components were produced with a higher electrical conductivity and optical absorptance than that formed by a single spray only. The experimental results showed that an organic solar cell comprising the HTL and PL from the crossed sprays was produced with better performances than the single spray. Using crossed sprays employing the composite deposition method, the layer interfaces of the spray deposition films with a high series resistance still need to be reduced to improve the device performance, posing a challenge to the uniform film-forming process.