Laser Induced Forward Transfer of Ag Nanoparticle inks for ITO-free organic photovoltaics

RoLA-FLEX consortium partners NTUA, CUT, PVN and AVA have demonstrated the laser printing and sintering of silver nanoparticle inks as bottom electrodes for the fabrication of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) -free organic photovoltaics.

Combining the so called “Laser Induced Forward Transfer” (LIFT) technique with selective laser sintering, conductive grids displaying high optical transmittance (77% compared to 81% for ITO) and reduced resistivity value (27μOhm*cm compared to 30 μOhm*cm for ITO) were fabricated on glass substrates (Figure 1).

These grids were employed as bottom electrodes on inverted structure ITO-free OPV solar cells which exhibited high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11%.

RoLA-FLEX has thus demonstrated the capability of the LIFT and laser sintering techniques to manufacture additively conductive grids as replacers of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) for the next generation of organic photovoltaics.

Original publication right here!

Figure 1. Laser printed and sintered bottom electrode for organic solar cells. (a) Schematic representation of laser printing and sintering process (b) Optical transmittance measurements for 6-9-12 lines grids (c) Resistivity measurements for a range of laser sintering powers