title: Silver Nanowires Binding with Sputtered ZnO to Fabricate Highly Conductive and Thermally Stable Transparent Electrode for Solar Cell Applications.
abstract: Silver nanowire (AgNW) film has been demonstrated as excellent and low cost transparent electrode in organic solar cells as an alternative to replace scarce and expensive indium tin oxide (ITO). However, the low contact area and weak adhesion with low-lying surface as well as junction resistance between nanowires have limited the applications of AgNW film to thin film solar cells. To resolve this problem, we fabricated AgNW film as transparent conductive electrode (TCE) by binding with a thin layer of sputtered ZnO (40 nm) which not only increased contact area with low-lying surface in thin film solar cell but also improved conductivity by connecting AgNWs at the junction. The TCE thus fabricated exhibited transparency and sheet resistance of 92% and 20Ω/□, respectively. Conductive atomic force microscopy (C-AFM) study revealed the enhancement of current collection vertically and laterally through AgNWs after coating with ZnO thin film. The CuInGaSe2 solar cell with TCE of our AgNW(ZnO) demonstrated the maximum power conversion efficiency of 13.5% with improved parameters in comparison to solar cell fabricated with conventional ITO as TCE.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Incheon National University , 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Manjeet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Incheon National University , 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Tanka R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Rana
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Incheon National University , 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: SeongYeon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Photovoltaic Laboratory, Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) , 152 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kihwan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Photovoltaic Laboratory, Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) , 152 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 34129, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Ho
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Yun
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Incheon National University , 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: JunHo
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Ag nanowires; CIGS; flexible electrode; thin film solar cell; transparent conducting electrode