Zhanhao Hu

Improving the Stability of Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells by Incorporating pH-Neutral PEDOT:PSS as the Hole Transport Layer

In the application of traditional bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells, to prevent the etching of ITO by the acidic poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and thereby improve the device stability, pH-neutral PEDOT:PSS is introduced as the hole transport layer (HTL). After treating the neutral PEDOT:PSS with UV-ozone and with an oxygen plasma, the average power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the device increases from 3.44% to 6.60%. Such surface treatments reduce the energy level offset between the HTL and the active layer, which increases the open circuit voltage and enhances hole transportation, leading to the PCE improvement. Moreover, the devices with the neutral PEDOT:PSS HTL are more stable in air than those with the acidic PEDOT:PSS HTL. The PCE of the devices with the acidic PEDOT:PSS HTL decreases by 20% after 7 days and 45% after 50 days under ambient conditions, whereas the PCE of the devices with the pH-neutral PEDOT:PSS HTL decreases by only 9 and 20% after 7 and 50 days, respectively. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy shows that the acidic PEDOT:PSS etches the indium from the indium-tin-oxide (ITO) electrode, which is responsible for the degradation of the device. In comparison, the diffusion of the indium is much slower in the devices with the pH-neutral PEDOT:PSS HTL.

Highly efficient, solution processed electrofluorescent small molecule white organic light-emitting diodes with a hybrid electron injection layer.

Highly efficient, solution-processed, and all fluorescent white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) based on fluorescent small molecules have been achieved by incorporating a low-conductivity hole injection layer and an inorganic-organic hybrid electron injection layer. The light-emission layer is created by doping a fluorescent π-conjugated blue dendrimer host (the zeroth generation dendrimer, G0) with a yellow-emitting fluorescent dopant oligo(paraphenylenevinylene) derivative CN-DPASDB with a doping ratio of 100:0.15 (G0:CN-DPASDB) by weight. To suppress excessive holes, the high-conductivity hole injection layer (PEDOT:PSS AI 4083) is replaced by the low-conductivity PEDOT:PSS CH 8000. To facilitate the electron injection, a hybrid electron injection layer is introduced by doping a methanol/water-soluble conjugated polymer poly[(9,9-bis(30-(N,N-dimethylamino)propyl)-2,7-fluorene)-alt-2,7-(9,9-dioctylfluorene)] (PFNR2) with solution-processed cesium fluoride (CsF). The device achieves a maximum luminous efficiency of 17.0 cd A(-1) and a peak power efficiency of 15.6 lm W(-1) at (0.32, 0.37) with a color rendering index of 64.

Flexible All-organic, All-solution Processed Thin Film Transistor Array with Ultrashort Channel

Shrinking the device dimension has long been the pursuit of the semiconductor industry to increase the device density and operation speed. In the application of thin film transistors (TFTs), all-organic TFT arrays made by all-solution process are desired for low cost and flexible electronics. One of the greatest challenges is how to achieve ultrashort channel through a cost-effective method. In our study, ultrashort-channel devices are demonstrated by direct inkjet printing conducting polymer as source/drain and gate electrodes without any complicated substrate’s pre-patterning process. By modifying the substrate’s wettability, the conducting polymer’s contact line is pinned during drying process which makes the channel length well-controlled. An organic TFT array of 200 devices with 2 μm channel length is fabricated on flexible substrate through all-solution process. The simple and scalable process to fabricate high resolution organic transistor array offers a low cost approach in the development of flexible and wearable electronics.

In situ patterning of microgrooves via inkjet etching for a solution-processed OLED display

Inkjet-printing a solvent onto an insulating polymer layer is employed to in situ build microgrooves as bank structures in the application of a solution-processed OLED display. The inkjet-etching process not only eliminates photolithographys shadow mask and photo exposure, but is also capable of constructing bank structures on any functional layer. The orthogonal solubility between the CYtop polymer and the organic layer avoids any solvent erosion. A pixelated display is successfully fabricated by inkjet-printing a blue-emitting polymer onto inkjet-etched CYtop microgrooves with a pixel resolution of 140 lines per inch. Forming a bank structure in situ on any layer as needed offers more choices to design a new panel structure, device architecture, and deposition methods.