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Roll-to-Roll AgNWs Networks/Ag Finger by Self-Masking Protection for Large-Area Monolithic Flexible Organic Solar
Yunfei Han1,2, Zhuo Chen3,4, Long Fang5
1i-Lab & Printable Electronics Research Center, Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Suzhou, Jiangsu, P. R. China. yfhan2017@sinano.ac.cn.
Nature Communications
|March 27, 2026
Summary
Researchers integrated conductive silver grid fingers onto silver nanowire electrodes for flexible organic solar cells. This significantly reduced electrical loss, improving efficiency and stability in large-area devices.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Renewable Energy Engineering
- Organic Electronics
Background:
- Flexible large-area monolithic organic solar cells face electrical losses during scale-up.
- Limited conductivity of transparent electrodes is a key challenge.
- This hinders the commercial viability of organic photovoltaic technology.
Purpose of the Study:
- To reduce electrical loss in large-area flexible organic solar cells.
- To enhance the conductivity of transparent electrodes.
- To improve power conversion efficiency and device stability.
Main Methods:
- Integrated highly conductive silver grid fingers onto silver nanowire electrodes using roll-to-roll screen printing.
- Developed a numerical model to optimize grid dimensions for reduced sheet resistance.
- Implemented a self-masking strategy to prevent shunting issues.
Main Results:
- Reduced composite sheet resistance from 15 to 1.5 Ω sq-1.
- Achieved equivalent sheet resistance of 1–2 Ω sq-1 for higher-resistance electrodes.
- Monolithic flexible organic solar cells (4 and 16 cm²) reached power conversion efficiencies of 15.20% and 14.24%, respectively.
- Demonstrated minimal efficiency loss with increasing device area.
Conclusions:
- The integration of silver grid fingers effectively minimizes electrical loss in large-area flexible organic solar cells.
- Optimized grid design and self-masking strategy enable high efficiency and stability.
- The developed approach shows significant potential for scalable and efficient organic solar cell manufacturing.
