Transparent Conductive Adhesives for Tandem Solar Cells Using Polymer–Particle Composites

Transparent conductive adhesives (TCAs) can enable conductivity between two substrates, which is useful for a wide range of electronic devices. Here, we have developed a TCA composed of a polymer–particle blend with ethylene-vinyl acetate as the transparent adhesive and metal-coated flexible poly­(m...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces 2018-03, Vol.10 (9), p.8086-8091
Main Authors: Klein, Talysa R, Lee, Benjamin G, Schnabel, Manuel, Warren, Emily L, Stradins, Paul, Tamboli, Adele C, van Hest, Maikel F. A. M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
adhesives
flexible microspheres
lamination
MATERIALS SCIENCE
polymer-particle composites
SOLAR ENERGY
tandem solar cells
transparent conductor
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Transparent conductive adhesives (TCAs) can enable conductivity between two substrates, which is useful for a wide range of electronic devices. Here, we have developed a TCA composed of a polymer–particle blend with ethylene-vinyl acetate as the transparent adhesive and metal-coated flexible poly­(methyl methacrylate) microspheres as the conductive particles that can provide conductivity and adhesion regardless of the surface texture. This TCA layer was designed to be nearly transparent, conductive in only the out-of-plane direction, and of practical adhesive strength to hold the substrates together. The series resistance was measured at 0.3 and 0.8 Ω cm2 for 8 and 0.2% particle coverage, respectively, while remaining over 92% was transparent in both cases. For applications in photovoltaic devices, such as mechanically stacked multijunction III–V/Si cells, a TCA with 1% particle coverage will have less than 0.5% power loss due to the resistance and less than 1% shading loss to the bottom cell.
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.8b00175