Search

Flexible and lightweight solar cells are promising for numerous emerging applications, and organometallic halide perovskites are particularly suitable for flexible solar cell applications. Transferring state of art high efficiency perovskite solar cells (PSCs) processing onto a flexible substrate, however, is challenging, requiring substantial redevelopment of materials compositions, device architectures, and processing conditions. In this work, highly flexible, robust, stable, and high efficiency PSCs based on mica substrate have been successfully developed, exhibiting a champion photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.0%, retaining more than 91.7% of the original PCE after 5000 cycles of large deformation bending, and being relatively stable against humidity under elevated temperature. Key to such excellent performance is the inorganic and transparent mica substrate that is chemically inert and stable under high temperature, so that processing developed for glass-based high efficiency perovskite solar cells (PSCs) can be readily applied without modification. Furthermore, the layered mica substrate is highly flexible, and van der Waals epitaxial growth of transparent conducting ITO relaxes the mechanical constraint on the PSCs substantially, reducing the strain in the device even under large bending deformation. We believe inorganic flexible mica substrate can be used as a platform for high efficiency PSCs compatible to glass substrate, speeding up the development of flexible PSCs substantially. Image 1 • Highly flexible, robust, stable and high efficiency perovskite solar cells (PSCs) on mica substrate have been developed. • Mica PSCs exhibit a champion photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.0%, retaining more than 91.7% after 5000 cycles. • The layered mica is highly flexible, and van der Waals epitaxial growth of ITO relaxes the mechanical constraint on PSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muscovite mica is expected to show great potential in flexible optoelectronics due to its superb temperature tolerance, high transmittance, chemical stability, and mechanical durability. This flexible substrate produces sputtered transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) with excellent film quality with high transmittance and conductivity. In this study, a designed composite TCE consisting of aluminum-doped zinc oxide (AZO) and indium tin oxide (ITO) is proposed to simultaneously maximize flexibility and conductivity. Blue-, green-, and red-emitting flexible organic light-emitting diodes (FOLEDs) using composite TCEs on mica exhibited satisfactory performance with maximum respective electroluminescence efficiencies of 18.1% (38.7 cd/A), 18.7% (66.2 cd/A), and 13.3% (22.2 cd/A). Furthermore, the green-emitting FOLEDs were modified to construct tandem FOLEDs, giving a higher peak efficiency of 27.9% (93.3 cd/A) and saturated green emission. These results can serve as a useful reference for future work on composite TCEs on mica for FOLEDs in display and lighting applications. Image 1 • Transparent muscovite mica with high thermal stability was used as a substrate for the manufacture of FOLEDs. • A specific TCEs structure consisting of AZO and ITO films was proposed to alleviate a significant increase in sheet resistance from substrate bending. • AZO/ITO TCE on mica presents a remarkable potential for realizing flexible OLEDs with outstanding EL performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]