CONTROL AND UNDERSTANDING OF FLEXIBLE ORGANIC PHOTOVOLATICS VIA NANO PRINTING

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) based on conjugated polymers and fullerene derivatives offer a great potential as an economically and environmentally friendly technology to utilize solar energy because of their simple fabrication processes and minimal material usage. They have gathered momentum over the last two decades primarily due to the significant advances in this field. The research described in the body of this dissertation aims to investigate the use of new materials and deposition techniques in the fabrication of organic photovoltaics. There has been a roadblock in the designing of novel OPV architectures primarily due to the use of brittle ITO which imposes a limit to the flexibility of the OPV. The use of thin metal films such as silver and gold is shown to be viable alternative to ITO with improved mechanical properties. Another great advantage of organic semiconductors is their solution-processability which allows inkjet-printing of the polymers for low-waste deposition on large and flexible substrates. In this work, inkjet-printing is developed as a viable deposition technique for the active layer, the effect of relevant parameters on the opto-electronic properties of the active layer is investigated. Finally, the results are incorporated and the new deposition technique with optimized parameters in combination with a thin metallic anode is applied to the fabrication of devices using the standard photo-active layer representing an important step in the manufacture of fully printed, flexible OPVs.