Solution Processed Organic Solar Cells on Textiles

Abstract

E-textiles are a promising platform for wearable technologies; but it faces the ubiquitous challenge of supplying power. One approach is to harvest ambient solar energy. Here, we present a fully solution processed organic solar cell (OSC) fabricated directly on to the surface of a standard polyester cotton fabric. A flexible screen printed interface layer is used to selectively smooth the fabric surface on to which all subsequent layers were deposited. The active layers making up the OSC were deposited entirely by solution processing using either spray coating or doctor blading in a nitrogen environment. Process temperatures are limited to 150 °C to protect the fabric. Spray coating is found to be a repeatable and reliable way to deposit thin functional films onto the fabric and we have obtained a maximum efficiency of 1.23% demonstrating the feasibility of this approach for fabricating OSCs on any standard textile.