Spray coated textile solar cells

E-textiles are a promising platform for wearable technologies, but these face the ubiquitous challenge of supplying power. One approach is to harvest ambient solar energy. Here we present a novel fully solution processed fabrication method and achieved on both organic solar cells (OSCs) and solid state dye sensitised solar cells (ssDSSCs), which were deposited directly on the surface of a standard woven textiles. A polyester cotton textile was used for the OSCs and a glass fibre textile substrate was used for the ssDSSCs that contain multiple layers of electrodes and active materials. All PV textile devices were characterized under simulated AM 1.5 conditions and a peak efficiency of 1.23% for OSCs and 0.4% for DSSCs was achieved. The fabrication approach demonstrates the feasibility of fabricating OSCs on any standard textile and ssDSSCs onto glass fibre textiles.