ITO with embedded silver grids as transparent conductive electrodes for large area organic solar cells.

In this work, development of semi-transparent electrodes for efficient large area organic solar cells (OSCs) has been demonstrated. Electron beam evaporated silver grids were embedded in commercially available ITO coatings on glass, through a standard negative photolithography process, in order to improve the conductivity of planar ITO substrates. The fabricated electrodes with embedded line and square patterned Ag grids reduced the sheet resistance of ITO by 25% and 40%, respectively, showing optical transmittance drops of less than 6% within the complete visible light spectrum for both patterns.

The influence of electrical effects on device performance of organic solar cells with nano-structured electrodes.

Integration of light-trapping features and exploitation of metal nanostructure plasmonic effects are promising approaches for enhancing the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells. These approaches' effects on the light absorption enhancement have been widely studied, especially in inorganic devices. While this light-trapping concept can be transferred to organic devices, one has to also consider nanostructure-induced electrical effects on the device performance, due to the fundamental difference in the organic semiconducting material properties compared to their inorganic counterparts.