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Properties of polyimide substrate for applications in flexible solar cells

M. Z. PAKHURUDDIN1,* , K. IBRAHIM1, A. ABDUL AZIZ1

Affiliation

  1. Nano-Optoelectronics Research and Technology Laboratory, School of Physics, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Minden 11800 Penang, Malaysia

Abstract

In this paper, the structural, surface morphology, thermal and optical properties of the Kapton polyimide (PI) 300HN plastic substrate (75 μm thickness) from Dupont Corporation have been investigated by various techniques for applications in flexible solar cells. High resolution X-ray diffraction (HR-XRD) measurement showed 4 diffraction peaks from the PI substrate at 22.08°, 25.88°, 44.56° and 64.87° (2θ angle). Atomic force microscope (AFM) depicted that the substrate has a fairly smooth morphology with surface roughness root-mean-square (RMS) of 22.52 nm. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) illustrated high thermal stability of the substrate as evident by the high decomposition temperature of around 600°C. Differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) measurement confirmed that the PI material has a glass transition temperature (Tg) of approximately 311°C and has no melting peak (observed within temperature range of 30 - 500°C) which conforms to the intrinsic property of standard Kapton PI 300HN. Optical transmittance demonstrated that the PI substrate has a fairly low transmittance (below 70%) in visible region and around 75 - 80% in infra-red (IR) region. The applications of the substrate in flexible solar cells were subsequently discussed..

Keywords

X-ray diffraction, Thermogravimetric analysis, Differential scanning calorimetric, Atomic force microscope, Transmittance.

Citation

M. Z. PAKHURUDDIN, K. IBRAHIM, A. ABDUL AZIZ, Properties of polyimide substrate for applications in flexible solar cells, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials - Rapid Communications, 7, 5-6, May-June 2013, pp.377-380 (2013).

Submitted at: Sept. 13, 2012

Accepted at: June 12, 2013