Room-temperature deposited fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide for stable organic solar cells

Ermioni Polydorou; Maria Verouti; Anastasia Soultati; Konstantina-Kalliopi Armadorou; Apostolis Verykios; Petros-Panagis Filippatos; George Galanis; Konstantina Tourlouki; Nikos Kehayias; Ioannis Karatasios; Navaratnarajah Kuganathan; Alexander Chroneos; Vassilis Kilikoglou; Leonidas C. Palilis; Panagiotis Argitis; Dimitris Davazoglou; Azhar Fakharuddin; Abd Rashid bin Mohd Yusoff; Maria Vasilopoulou

doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607

Room-temperature deposited fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide for stable organic solar cells

Ermioni Polydorou, Maria Verouti, Anastasia Soultati, Konstantina-Kalliopi Armadorou, Apostolis Verykios, Petros-Panagis Filippatos, George Galanis, Konstantina Tourlouki, Nikos Kehayias, Ioannis Karatasios, Navaratnarajah Kuganathan, Alexander Chroneos, Vassilis Kilikoglou, Leonidas C. Palilis, Panagiotis Argitis, Dimitris Davazoglou, Azhar Fakharuddin, Abd Rashid bin Mohd Yusoff, Maria Vasilopoulou

Centre for Manufacturing and Materials

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Earth-abundant transition metal oxides deposited at room temperature with low-cost methods suitable for large area manufacturing can offer advances in many fields of energy related devices. Here we report the room-temperature deposition of a fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide using a home-made, low-cost hot-wire deposition system. This novel tantalum oxyfluoride material is super hydrophobic, ultra-transparent within the visible spectrum, and possesses adequate conductivity and suitable valence band and conduction band extrema for acting as efficient hole extraction and electron blocking layer in organic solar cells with the forward architecture. By inserting this material in the form of nanoparticles deposited on top of the commonly used as hole transport layer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, higher efficiencies compared to the reference cells without the nanoparticles were demonstrated in solar cells based on blends of polymer donors with either a fullerene (where maximum achieved efficiency was improved from 6.07% to 7.90%) or a non-fullerene acceptor (reaching values of 13.48% compared to 11.32% of the reference cell). Moreover, significant improvement in device stability was achievd in unencapsulated devices continuously exposed in a humid environment for 500 h. This work demonstrates the unambiguous potential of well-designed metal oxide materials as charge transport and blocking interlayers and protective buffers in organic solar cells and beyond.

Original language	English
Article number	106607
Number of pages	11
Journal	Organic Electronics
Volume	108
Early online date	30 Jul 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607
Publication status	Published - Sept 2022

Funder

This work was supported by the research project “ΗΕLIOKERAMOS” - MIS 5066858, funded by the Operational Programme (EPAnEK) “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation” (NSRF 2014-2020), under the special action “Industrial Materials” and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund). This research was also supported by Grant 81365 from the Research Committee of the University of Patras via “C. CARATHEODORI” program. AC acknowledges support from the European Union's H2020 Program under Grant Agreement no 824072– HARVESTORE.

Keywords

Tantalum pentoxide
Fluorine doping
Organic solar cells
Stability

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10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607

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Polydorou, E., Verouti, M., Soultati, A., Armadorou, K.-K., Verykios, A., Filippatos, P.-P., Galanis, G., Tourlouki, K., Kehayias, N., Karatasios, I., Kuganathan, N., Chroneos, A., Kilikoglou, V., Palilis, L. C., Argitis, P., Davazoglou, D., Fakharuddin, A., Mohd Yusoff, A. R. B., & Vasilopoulou, M. (2022). Room-temperature deposited fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide for stable organic solar cells. Organic Electronics, 108, Article 106607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607

Polydorou, E, Verouti, M, Soultati, A, Armadorou, K-K, Verykios, A, Filippatos, P-P, Galanis, G, Tourlouki, K, Kehayias, N, Karatasios, I, Kuganathan, N, Chroneos, A, Kilikoglou, V, Palilis, LC, Argitis, P, Davazoglou, D, Fakharuddin, A, Mohd Yusoff, ARB & Vasilopoulou, M 2022, 'Room-temperature deposited fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide for stable organic solar cells', Organic Electronics, vol. 108, 106607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607

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abstract = "Earth-abundant transition metal oxides deposited at room temperature with low-cost methods suitable for large area manufacturing can offer advances in many fields of energy related devices. Here we report the room-temperature deposition of a fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide using a home-made, low-cost hot-wire deposition system. This novel tantalum oxyfluoride material is super hydrophobic, ultra-transparent within the visible spectrum, and possesses adequate conductivity and suitable valence band and conduction band extrema for acting as efficient hole extraction and electron blocking layer in organic solar cells with the forward architecture. By inserting this material in the form of nanoparticles deposited on top of the commonly used as hole transport layer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, higher efficiencies compared to the reference cells without the nanoparticles were demonstrated in solar cells based on blends of polymer donors with either a fullerene (where maximum achieved efficiency was improved from 6.07% to 7.90%) or a non-fullerene acceptor (reaching values of 13.48% compared to 11.32% of the reference cell). Moreover, significant improvement in device stability was achievd in unencapsulated devices continuously exposed in a humid environment for 500 h. This work demonstrates the unambiguous potential of well-designed metal oxide materials as charge transport and blocking interlayers and protective buffers in organic solar cells and beyond.",

keywords = "Tantalum pentoxide, Fluorine doping, Organic solar cells, Stability",

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AU - Polydorou, Ermioni

AU - Verouti, Maria

AU - Soultati, Anastasia

AU - Armadorou, Konstantina-Kalliopi

AU - Verykios, Apostolis

AU - Filippatos, Petros-Panagis

AU - Galanis, George

AU - Tourlouki, Konstantina

AU - Kehayias, Nikos

AU - Karatasios, Ioannis

AU - Kuganathan, Navaratnarajah

AU - Chroneos, Alexander

AU - Kilikoglou, Vassilis

AU - Palilis, Leonidas C.

AU - Argitis, Panagiotis

AU - Davazoglou, Dimitris

AU - Fakharuddin, Azhar

AU - Mohd Yusoff, Abd Rashid bin

AU - Vasilopoulou, Maria

PY - 2022/9

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N2 - Earth-abundant transition metal oxides deposited at room temperature with low-cost methods suitable for large area manufacturing can offer advances in many fields of energy related devices. Here we report the room-temperature deposition of a fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide using a home-made, low-cost hot-wire deposition system. This novel tantalum oxyfluoride material is super hydrophobic, ultra-transparent within the visible spectrum, and possesses adequate conductivity and suitable valence band and conduction band extrema for acting as efficient hole extraction and electron blocking layer in organic solar cells with the forward architecture. By inserting this material in the form of nanoparticles deposited on top of the commonly used as hole transport layer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, higher efficiencies compared to the reference cells without the nanoparticles were demonstrated in solar cells based on blends of polymer donors with either a fullerene (where maximum achieved efficiency was improved from 6.07% to 7.90%) or a non-fullerene acceptor (reaching values of 13.48% compared to 11.32% of the reference cell). Moreover, significant improvement in device stability was achievd in unencapsulated devices continuously exposed in a humid environment for 500 h. This work demonstrates the unambiguous potential of well-designed metal oxide materials as charge transport and blocking interlayers and protective buffers in organic solar cells and beyond.

AB - Earth-abundant transition metal oxides deposited at room temperature with low-cost methods suitable for large area manufacturing can offer advances in many fields of energy related devices. Here we report the room-temperature deposition of a fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide using a home-made, low-cost hot-wire deposition system. This novel tantalum oxyfluoride material is super hydrophobic, ultra-transparent within the visible spectrum, and possesses adequate conductivity and suitable valence band and conduction band extrema for acting as efficient hole extraction and electron blocking layer in organic solar cells with the forward architecture. By inserting this material in the form of nanoparticles deposited on top of the commonly used as hole transport layer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate, higher efficiencies compared to the reference cells without the nanoparticles were demonstrated in solar cells based on blends of polymer donors with either a fullerene (where maximum achieved efficiency was improved from 6.07% to 7.90%) or a non-fullerene acceptor (reaching values of 13.48% compared to 11.32% of the reference cell). Moreover, significant improvement in device stability was achievd in unencapsulated devices continuously exposed in a humid environment for 500 h. This work demonstrates the unambiguous potential of well-designed metal oxide materials as charge transport and blocking interlayers and protective buffers in organic solar cells and beyond.

KW - Tantalum pentoxide

KW - Fluorine doping

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KW - Stability

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DO - 10.1016/j.orgel.2022.106607

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SN - 1566-1199

VL - 108

JO - Organic Electronics

JF - Organic Electronics

M1 - 106607

ER -

Room-temperature deposited fluorine-doped tantalum pentoxide for stable organic solar cells

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