Circumventing UV light induced nano-morphology disorder to achieve long lifetime PTB7-Th:PCBM based solar cells
Large area flexible electronics rely on organic or hybrid materials prone to degradation limiting the device lifetime. For many years, photo-oxidation has been thought to be one of the major degradation pathways. However, intense illumination may lead to a burn-in or a rapid decrease in performance...
| Autores: | , , , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2017 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/106837 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/106837 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Solar cells solar cells Cèl·lules solars Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física |
| Sumario: | Large area flexible electronics rely on organic or hybrid materials prone to degradation limiting the device lifetime. For many years, photo-oxidation has been thought to be one of the major degradation pathways. However, intense illumination may lead to a burn-in or a rapid decrease in performance for devices completely isolated from corrosive elements as oxygen or moisture. The experimental studies we present in here indicate that a plausible triggering for the burn-in is a spin flip after a UV photon absorption leading to the accumulation of electrostatic potential energy that initiates a rapid destruction of the nano-morpholgy in the fullerene phase of a polymer cell. To circumvent this and achieve highly stable and efficient devices, we induce a robust nano-crystalline ordering in the PCBM phase prior to UV illumination. In that event, PTB7-Th:PC71BM cells are shown to exhibit T80 lifetimes larger than 1.6 years under a continuous UV-filtered 1-sun illumination, equivalent to 7 years for sunlight harvesting at optimal orientation and 10 years for vertical applications. |
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