https://phys.org/news/2018-07-technique-fabricate-ceramic-opv-inter-layers.html

OPV cells using ZnO thin films as buffer layers are actively being studied. In conventional production processes of ZnO thin films, a sintering process by high temperature heating or alternative energy irradiation was necessary.

A joint group of researchers from Osaka University and Kanazawa University developed a technique for coating Zinc related oxide (ZnOx, ZnOHx) simply by depositing the films in a solution process using the Metal Organic Decomposition (MOD) method at ambient temperature and pressure without a heating process. They also demonstrated that their thin films produced by this technique were useful as buffer layers for OPV cells and that the films achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) equivalent to that of ZnO thin films produced by conventional methods involving sintering. Their research results were published in Scientific Reports.