Highly transparent Ag doped In2O3 electrodes with high work function for organic solar cells

• The characteristics of Ag-doped In2O3 (IAO) films for organic photovoltaics (OPV) were investigated.
• The annealed IAO film showed a low sheet resistance of 23.12 Ohm/square and transmittance of 79.28%.
• The OPV with the IAO anode showed performance comparable to the OPV with ITO anode.

We report highly transparent Ag-doped In2O3 (IAO) films with high work function for use as transparent anodes in organic solar cells (OSCs). The electrical, optical, structural, and morphological properties of IAO films and their work function were investigated as a function of the rapid thermal annealing (RTA) temperature. At an RTA temperature of 600 °C, the IAO film showed a sheet resistance of 23.12 Ohm/square, an optical transmittance of 79.28%, and a work function of 5.21 eV, similar to conventional Sn-doped In2O3 (ITO) films. The low resistivity of the IAO film was closely related to oxygen vacancies caused by Ag suboxide formation in the In2O3 matrix. A bulk-heterojunction OSC with the optimized IAO anode showed performance comparable to that of an OSC with a reference ITO anode, indicating that the IAO films is a promising anode material for use in OSCs.