Investigation on Low-temperature Annealing Process of Solution-processed TiO₂ Electron Transport Layer for Flexible...

Flexible perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have received increasing attention in wearable and portable devices over the past ten years. The low-temperature process of electron transport layer plays a key role in fabricating flexible PSCs. In this paper, we improve the performance of flexible PSCs by controlling the thermodynamic procedure in the low-temperature annealing process of solution-processed TiO₂ layers and modulating the precursor concentration of (6,6)-phenyl c₆₁ butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁BM) deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)/TiO₂ substrate. The results show that slowing down evaporation rate of residual solvent and adopting PC₆₁BM of appropriate precursor concentration are confirmed to be effective methods to improve the performance of flexible PSCs. We also demonstrate carbon electrode-based flexible PSCs. Our work expands the feasibility of low temperature process for the development of flexible perovskite photodetectors and light-emitting diodes, as well as flexible PSCs.