Electron Transport Layer-Free Inverted Organic Solar Cells Fabricated with Highly Transparent Low-Resistance Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide/Ag/Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide Multilayer Electrode

Abstract

Inverted organic solar cells (OSCs) have been fabricated with conventional Sn-doped indium oxide (ITO) and amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO)/Ag/a-IGZO (39 nm/19 nm/39 nm) (a-IAI) electrodes and their electrical characteristics characterized. The ITO and optimized a-IAI electrodes showed high transmittance of 96% and 88% at 500 nm, respectively. The carrier concentration and sheet resistance of the ITO and a-IAI films were 8.46 x 10(20) cm(-3) and 7.96 x 10(21) cm(-3) and 14.18 Omega/sq and 4.24 Omega/sq, respectively. Electron transport layer (ETL)-free OSCs with the a-IAI electrode exhibited power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.66%, similar to that of ZnO ETL-based OSCs with ITO electrode (3.27%). However, the ETL-free OSCs with the a-IAI electrode showed much higher PCE than the ETL-free OSCs with the ITO electrode (0.84%). Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that the work function of the a-IAI electrode was 4.15 eV. This improved performance was attributed to the various roles of the a-IAI electrode, e.g., as an effective ETL and a hole blocking layer.