Highly efficient bifacial transparent organic solar cells with power conversion efficiency greater than 3% and transparency of 50%

In this work, we present vacuum-deposited bifacial transparent organic solar cells on indium-tin-oxide-coated glass substrates. Good performances and high transparencies are achieved simultaneously by employing the planar-mixed heterojunction of the organic donor 2-{[7-(5-N,N-ditolylaminothiophen-2-yl)-2,1,3-benzothiadiazol-4-yl]methylene}malononitrile (DTDCTB) and fullerenes with carefully designed resonance top electrodes. Comprehensive optical simulation is exploited to investigate the effect of the top-electrode configuration on the cell transparency and efficiency. Cells with structures designed for high transparencies were fabricated and tested. The DTDCTB:C60 device yields a high transmission of up to 66.4% at 530 nm and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.11%. Moreover, the DTDCTB:C70 device demonstrates an exceptional PCE as high as 3.24% with a balanced transmission of ≈50% in the visible spectrum. Enhanced PCE values of transparent solar cells are also revealed with the use of external reflectors. Efficiency enhancements of ≈15% and ≈65% are achieved by simply attaching a reflection mirror at the cathode or anode side, respectively.

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► Vacuum-deposited bifacial transparent organic solar cells are demonstrated.
► Comprehensive optical simulation is exploited.
► The device shows an efficiency up to 3.24% with a balanced transmission of 50%.
► Enhanced efficiency of device is also revealed with the use of external reflectors.