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Comparisons of the Mechanical Behaviors of Poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) and ITO on Flexible Substrates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2013

Khalid Alzoubi
Affiliation:
Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
Gihoon Choi
Affiliation:
Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
Mohammad M. Hamasha
Affiliation:
Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
Atif S Alkhazali
Affiliation:
Deaprtment of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
John DeFranco
Affiliation:
Orthogonal Inc, Ithaca, NY 14850
Susan Lu
Affiliation:
Deaprtment of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
Bahgat Sammakia
Affiliation:
Deaprtment of Mechanical Engineering, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
Charles Westgate
Affiliation:
Center for Autonomous Solar Power (CASP), State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13905
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Abstract

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) has been widely used as a Transparent Conductive Oxide (TCO) layer in the photovoltaic solar technology because of its excellent electrical and optical properties. However, ITO is brittle, and its conductivity decreases significantly as the ITO films are exposed to stretching or bending strains especially in flexible/foldable solar cell applications. The cracks in ITO appear at very low strains which might cause failure in the conductive layer because of the combination of a very thin film of brittle ceramic material applied to a polymer substrate. Poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene), abbreviated PEDOT, is of increasing interest as a competitive candidate to ITO. PEDOT has found its way in many applications such as transparent electrode materials and transparent conductive layers in photovoltaic solar cells. In this work, the mechanical behavior of PEDOT was studied under high cycle bending fatigue in which the effects of bending diameter and bending frequency were considered and compared to ITO. High magnification optical images were used to study cracking in the PEDOT as well as the ITO layers. In flexible solar cells, the web will be exposed to folding/bending many times during manufacturing and installation. Therefore, the thin film substrate structure will be exposed to cyclic loading cyclic tensile and compressive strains. Therefore, this work was designed to mechanically fatigue the structure and study its behavior. It was found that bending diameters as well as material (PEDOT or ITO) have a great influence on the electrical conductivity of the thin films.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2013 

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