Fully Printed and Industrially Scalable Semitransparent Organic Photovoltaic Modules: Navigating through Material and Processing Constraints

Abstract

While the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic photovoltaics (OPV) on small‐area lab cells has rapidly increased during the last few years, the performance on module level and the availability of OPV modules on the market is still limited, primarily due to specific constraints imposed by the industrial production process. This work deals with the upscaling process of latest‐generation OPV from small‐area lab cells to fully solution‐processed modules, which are compatible to industrial roll‐to‐roll (R2R) printing. This transfer is demonstrated step by step from material selection and process optimization for every single layer of the stack (photoactive layer, charge transporting layers, and solution‐processed top electrode)–including long‐term stability investigations (thermal and light)–to scaling up the device area by a factor of >100. Thus, a semitransparent OPV module with 10.8% PCE on 10.2 cm2 active area is achieved, which is among the highest performances for semitransparent, fully solution‐processed OPV modules. The individual developments all meet the requirements for industrial R2R printing (green solvents, processing in air, annealing ≤140 °C, etc.), which ensures that both the optimized layer stack and the fabrication process are fully scalable and easily transferable to large‐scale production.