Investigation on polymer anode design for flexible polymer solar cells

Bilayer polymer anode composed of poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene): polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) (PH500) and PEDOT:PSS (Baytron P VP Al 4083) was used to construct flexible polymer solar cells on plastic substrates polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with a device structure of PET/polymer anode/APFO-3:PCBM/LiF/Al. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the indium tin oxide (ITO)-free solar cells achieved 2.2% under illumination of AM1.5 (100 mW cm(-2)), which is 80% of the PCE of the reference cells with ITO on glass. The simplicity of preparing bilayer polymer anode and the comparable performance achieved in the flexible solar cells made the bilayer polymer anode an alternative to ITO for flexible solar cells produced by printing technology. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.