Highly flexible, conductive and transparent MoO3/Ag/MoO3 multilayer electrode for organic photovoltaic cells

MoO3/Ag/MoO3(MAM) multilayer structures were deposited by vacuum evaporation on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. We demonstrate that, as in the case of glass substrate, the sheet resistance of such structures depends significantly on the Ag film deposition rate. When it is deposited between 0.2 and 0.4 nm/s, an Ag thickness of 11 nm allows achieving sheet resistance of 13 Omega/sq and an averaged transmission of 74%. A study of the influence of the PET substrate on the optimum MoO3 thicknesses was done. A good qualitative agreement between the theoretical calculations of the variation of the optical transmittance of the MoO3/Ag/MoO3 structures is obtained. The optimum MAM structures MoO3 (17.5 nm)/Ag (11 nm)/MoO3 (35 nm) has a factor of merit FM = 4.21 10(-3) (Omega/sq)(-1). Proven by the scotch test the MAM structures exhibit a good adhesion to the PET substrates. The MAM structures were also submitted to bending tests. For outer bending, the samples exhibit no variation of their resistance value, while for inner bending there is a small increase of the resistance of the MAM structures. However this increasing is smaller than that exhibited by Indium Tin Oxide. When the PET/MAM structures are used as anode in organic photovoltaic cells, it is shown that the need to use thicker Ag films inside themultilayer and to cover the MAM with Au to obtain promising Current density vs Voltage characteristics is due to the heating of the PET substrate during the deposition process. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.