Development of Fiber and Textile-Shaped Organic Solar Cells for Smart Textiles

Abstract

Photovoltaic textiles consisting of fiber-shaped organic photovoltaic cells provide power for diverse electronic devices including flexible and wearable devices. In the present study, fiber-shaped organic photovoltaic cells with an inverted polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojunction structure were successfully fabricated by solution processing of all functional layers under ambient conditions. The transparent resin coating greatly enhanced the photovoltaic performance and the sealed photovoltaic fibers showed an electrical power output up to 4.6 and 0.14 mW/cm(2) under the sunlight and indoor light irradiation conditions. In addition, the coated fibers were stably woven into textiles. The obtained photovoltaic textiles showed excellent flexibility and foldability in addition to power generation characteristics. These results have opened up the possibility of development of flexible, lightweight, low-cost, and scalable fiber-based organic photovoltaic textiles.