All-Inkjet-Printed, All-Air-Processed Solar Cells

The prospective of using direct-write printing techniques for the manufacture of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) has made these techniques highly attractive. OPVs have the potential to revolutionize small-scale portable electronic applications by directly providing electric power to the systems. However, no route is available for monolithically integrating the energy-harvesting units into a system in which other components, such as transistors, sensors, or displays, are already fabricated. Here, the fabrication and the measurement of inkjet-printed, air-processed organic solar cells is reported for the first time. Highly controlled conducting and semiconducting films using engineered inks for inkjet printing enable good efficiencies for printed OPVs between H2 and 5% power conversion efficiency. The results show that inkjet printing is an attractive digital printing technology for cost-effective, environmentally friendly integration of photovoltaic cells onto plastic substrates.