title: Highly conductive and low cost Ni-PET flexible substrate for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells.
abstract: The highly conductive and flexible nickel-polyethylene terephthalate (Ni-PET) substrate was prepared by a facile way including electrodeposition and hot-press transferring. The effectiveness was demonstrated in the counter electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The Ni film electrodeposition mechanism, microstructure, and DSSC performance for the Ni-PET flexible substrate were investigated. The uniform and continuous Ni film was first fabricated by electroplating metallic Ni on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and then intactly transferred onto PET via hot-pressing using Surlyn as the joint adhesive. The obtained flexible Ni-PET substrate shows low sheet resistance of 0.18Ω/□ and good chemical stability for the I(-)/I(3-) electrolyte. A high light-to-electric energy conversion efficiency of 7.89% was demonstrated in DSSCs system based on this flexible electrode substrate due to its high conductivity, which presents an improvement of 10.4% as compared with the general ITO-PEN flexible substrate. This method paves a facile and cost-effective way to manufacture various metals on a plastic nonconducive substrate beneficial for the devices toward flexible and rollable.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Haijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Mingyang
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Ya-Huei
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhai
authors.forename: Nga Yu
authors.initials: NY
authors.lastname: Hau
authors.forename: Yu-Ting
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Chang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ai Kah
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Soh
authors.forename: Shien-Ping
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Feng