Multi-Length Scaled Silver Nanowire Grid for Application in Efficient Organic Solar Cells

Transparent conducting electrodes (TCEs) with multi-length scaled structure are promising candidates as a potential replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO). In this work, multi-length scaled silver nanowire (AgNW) grids are demonstrated as TCEs for organic solar cells. The multi-length scale silver nanowire grids are prepared by top-down patterning using a neutral vapor etching process. Patterning AgNW film into multi-length scale grid structures could improve the optical transmittance and enhance the use of incident photons. Based on these multi-length scale AgNW grids, inverted bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells with power conversion efficiency up to 9.02% are fabricated, which are higher than that based on the original AgNW films and comparable to that based on ITO.