Chemicals manufactures flexible wearable solar cells

Flexible wearable electronics is the hot direction for the development of electronic components in the future, and power supply is an important part of it. The choice and design of the power supply influence the design and functionality of future wearable electronics. At present, power supplies have great restrictions on the outdoor use of wearable electronics, large area fit, and safety.

In recent years, metal-organic hybrid perovskite solar cells have received extensive attention for their superior photoelectric conversion performance. Photovoltaic conversion efficiency based on perovskite materials planar structure devices has made important breakthroughs in just a few years, with the highest efficiency being 22.1%. Excellent optoelectronic performance makes it possible to use in wearable electronic devices. However, flexible perovskite solar cells have not yet been practically used in wearable electronic devices, and this development is limited because of the problems of poor reproducibility of large areas and attenuation of bending properties in current flexible devices.

Under the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Song Yanlin, a researcher at the Key Laboratory of Green Printing Institute of the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has conducted in-depth systematic research on the preparation of perovskite crystals and battery devices. They made a breakthrough in the preparation of perovskite battery devices for inkjet printing, and achieved a more environmentally friendly printing preparation method than traditional processes. Progress has been made in ink-jet printing perovskite single crystal materials, and printing and preparing tricolor primary perovskite light-emitting single crystal materials have been realized.

Based on the above studies, the researchers found that the interfacial layer in the flexible perovskite device has a great influence on the growth and stability of the perovskite layer. The honeycomb nano-supports prepared by nano-assembly-printing method can be used as mechanical buffer layers and optical resonant cavities, thereby greatly improving the photoelectric conversion efficiency and mechanical stability of flexible perovskite solar cells. Studies have shown that honeycomb-like nanostructures can effectively release the stress generated when the device bends, and act as a scaffold to induce perovskite film crystallization. At the same time, the structure acts as an optical resonant cavity to perform light enrichment and control of the entire device, thereby improving the light absorption efficiency of the device. After the introduction of honeycomb-like nanoscaffolds, the photoelectric conversion efficiency of the prepared perovskite solar cells reached 12.32%. Further research found that the battery has excellent bending resistance, can be applied to flexible solar modules. The solar cell module has high photoelectric conversion efficiency and stable performance and can be widely applied to various types of wearable devices. The research provides new ideas and methods for the development of next-generation wearable electronic devices. The research results are published in the magazine of Advanced Materials.