Screen printing process control for coating high throughput titanium dioxide films toward printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells

Abstract

Screen printing technique has been widely applied for the manufacturing of both traditional silicon solar cells and emerging photovoltaics such as dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Particularly, we have developed a printable mesoscopic PSC based on a triple layer scaffold of TiO₂/ZrO₂/carbon. The deposition of the scaffold is entirely based on screen printing process, which provides a promising prospect for low-cost photovoltaics. However, the optimal thickness of the TiO₂ layer for fabricating efficient printable PSCs is much smaller than the typical thickness of screen printed films. Here, we tune the concentration of the pastes and the printing parameters for coating TiO₂ films, and successfully print TiO₂ films with the thickness of 500−550 nm. The correlation between the thickness of the films and printing parameters such as the solid content and viscosity of the pastes, the printing speed and pressure, and the temperature has been investigated. Besides, the edge effect that the edge of the TiO₂ films possesses a much larger thickness and printing positional accuracy have been studied. This work will significantly benefit the further development of printable mesoscopic PSCs.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

screen printing / perovskite solar cells (PSCs) / thickness / parameter control

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21702069, 91433203 and 61474049), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (863) (No. 2015AA034601), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Science and Technology Department of Hubei Province (No. 2017AAA190), the 111 Project (No. B07038), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2017M612452), and the Double first-class research funding of China-EU Institute for Clean and Renewable Energy (Nos. ICARE-RP-2018-SOLAR-001 and ICARE-RP-2018-SOLAR-002).

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest to declare.

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