Citric acid modified semi-embedded silver nanowires/colorless polyimide transparent conductive substrates for efficient flexible perovskite solar cells

• Published in: RSC advances 2023-05, Vol.13 (23), p.15531-15539
• Main Authors: Gong, Jie, Fan, Xiao, Zong, Zhangyang, Yang, Mingyang, Sun, Ya, Zhao, Guoqun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chemistry; Citric acid; Energy conversion efficiency; Indium tin oxides; Nanowires; Perovskites; Photovoltaic cells; Power management; Power sources; Solar cells; Substrates
• ISSN: 2046-2069; 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/d3ra01639k

Flexible solar cells, with the merits of structure compactness and shape transformation, are promising power sources for future electronic devices. However, frangible indium tin oxide-based transparent conductive substrates severely limit the flexibility of solar cells. Herein, we develop a flexible transparent conductive substrate of silver nanowires semi-embedded in colorless polyimide (denoted as AgNWs/cPI) via a simple and effective substrate transfer method. A homogeneous and well-connected AgNW conductive network can be constructed through modulating the silver nanowire suspension with citric acid. As a result, the prepared AgNWs/cPI shows low sheet resistance of about 21.3 ohm sq. −1 , high transmittance at 550 nm of 94%, and smooth morphology with the peak-to-valley roughness value of 6.5 nm. The perovskite solar cells (PSCs) on AgNWs/cPI exhibit power conversion efficiency of 14.98% with negligible hysteresis. Moreover, the fabricated PSCs maintain nearly 90% initial efficiency after bending for 2000 cycles. This study sheds light on the importance of suspension modification for the distribution and connection of AgNWs and paves a way for the development of high-performance flexible PSCs for practical applications. High-performance flexible perovskite solar cells based on a citric acid modified transparent conductive substrate of silver nanowires semi-embedded in colorless polyimide.