Optimising Non-Patterned MoO ₃/Ag/MoO ₃ Anode for High-Performance Semi-Transparent Organic Solar Cells towards Window Applications

Abstract

Semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) have attracted significant research attention, as they have strong potential to be applied in automobiles and buildings. For ST-OSCs, the transparent top electrode is an indispensable component, where the dielectric/metal/dielectric (D/M/D) structured electrode displayed a promising future due to its simplicity in the fabrication. In this work, by using the MoO ₃-/Ag-/MoO ₃-based D/M/D transparent electrode, we fabricated ST-OSCs based on the PM6:N3 active layer for the first time. In the device fabrication, the D/M/D transparent electrode was optimised by varying the thickness of the outer MoO ₃ layer. As a result, we found that increasing the thickness of the outer MoO ₃ layer can increase the average visible transmittance (AVT) but decrease the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the device. The outer MoO ₃ layer with a 10 nm thickness was found as the optimum case, where its corresponding device showed the PCE of 9.18% with a high AVT of 28.94%. Moreover, the colour perception of fabricated ST-OSCs was investigated. All semi-transparent devices exhibited a neutral colour perception with a high colour rendering index (CRI) over 90, showing great potential for the window application.