fairfolio
Saved Projects

Developing Metal Electrodes to Replace ITO in Organic Thin Film Solar Photovoltaics

CSEF · 2019 Chemistry Fourth Award

Anshul Narain · Clovis North High School, Fresno, Fresno County

Overview

Objectives Develop a method to effectively replace Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) anodes with inexpensive Silver (Ag) anodes in thin film solar cells. Methods Used spin-coater to deposit polymer films on substrate. Measured % transmittance with a UV/Vis spectrometer. Used thermal evaporator to deposit metal anodes and cathodes in to devices. Measured current density vs. voltage with Keithley JV curve measurer. Analyzed data in MATLAB. Results With the conditions determined through the preliminary testing, the Silver anodes were able to effectively replace the ITO anodes in thin film solar photovoltaics by allowing the devices to function as diodes and abide by the predictions of the Child Langmuir Law. Similar charge mobility in devices developed with ITO and the devices I developed with Silver indicate comparable efficiencies as well. Conclusions The Silver anodes allowed for the devices developed to function effectively without the use of ITO. This means that Silver can be used as a viable alternative to ITO while reducing the cost by almost 13 times per unit mass.

Summary statement

I developed a method by which expensive Indium Tin Oxide anodes could be effectively replaced with inexpensive Silver anodes in organic thin film solar photovoltaics.

Help received

I designed the method for replacing ITO with Silver myself with guidance from my lab mentor. My mentor also reviewed the validity of my procedures and results.

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2019 Chemistry · Entry S0615

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google