Transparent Electrodes for ST-OPV

Ultrathin metal film (UTME) is another widely studied candidate for the transparent electrode in ST-OPV. Metal films are highly conductive and ductile when the thickness of metal film reduces to under 20 nm, it starts... 

Transparent conductive oxides such as indium-tin oxide (ITO), fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and Al-doped ZnO (AZO) are the most commonly used transparent electrodes for optoelectronic devices. Among them, ITO has been extensively applied for both opaque cells and ST-OPV cells owing to its low sheet resistance (10-15 Q sq ) and high optical transmittance (-90%). ITO can be coated on either glass substrate or plastic substrate and can be used as the bottom transparent electrode in conjunction with other types of transparent electrode as the top electrode. Indeed, in one of the earliest demonstrations of the concept of the ST-OPV device, ITO was used as both the bottom and top electrodes, facilitated by a lamination method to stick together two individually... 

An example of the modeled electric field intensity profiles of an opaque cell and the corresponding ST-OPV cell are given in Figure 12.3(a). The ST-OPV presented is composed of a PBDTTT-C-T PC7iBM BHJ film sandwiched between an ITO and an ultrathin Ag film (12 nm) transparent electrode, while for the opaque cell a thick Ag film was used as the mirror electrode. The simulations indicate that in both cases the distributions of the electric field inside the solar cells are highly wavelength dependent and inhomogeneous... 

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