Highly flexible InSnO electrodes on thin colourless polyimide substrate for high-performance flexible CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite solar cells

We fabricated high-performance flexible CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3) perovskite solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of 15.5% on roll-to-roll sputtered ITO films on 60 mu m-thick colourless polyimide (CPI) substrate. Due to the thermal stability of the CPI substrate, an ITO/CPI sample subjected to rapid thermal annealing at 300 degrees C showed a low sheet resistance of 57.8 Omega/square and high transmittance of 83.6%, which are better values than those of an ITO/PET sample. Outer and inner bending tests demonstrated that the mechanical flexibility of the ITO/CPI was superior to that of the conventional ITO/PET sample owing to the thinness of the CPI substrate. In addition, due to its good mechanical flexibility, the ITO/CPI showed no change in resistance after 10,000 cycle outer and inner dynamic fatigue tests. Flexible perovskite solar cells with the structure of Au/PTAA/MAPbI3/ZnO/ITO/CPI showed a high power conversion efficiency of 15.5%. The successful operation of these flexible perovskite solar cells on ITO/CPI substrate indicated that the ITO film on thermally stable CPI substrate is a promising of flexible substrate for high-temperature processing, a finding likely to advance the commercialization of cost-efficient flexible perovskite solar cells. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.