PCDTBT based solar cells: one year of operation under real-world conditions

Yiwei Zhang; Edward Bovill; James Kingsley; Alastair R Buckley; Hunan Yi; Ahmed Iraqi; Tao Wang; David G Lidzey

doi:10.1038/srep21632

PCDTBT based solar cells: one year of operation under real-world conditions

Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 9:6:21632. doi: 10.1038/srep21632.

Authors

Yiwei Zhang¹, Edward Bovill¹, James Kingsley², Alastair R Buckley¹, Hunan Yi³, Ahmed Iraqi³, Tao Wang⁴, David G Lidzey¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S3 7RH, UK.
² Ossila Ltd, Kroto Innovation Centre, Broad Lane, Sheffield, S3 7HQ, UK.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7HF, UK.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, China.

Abstract

We present measurements of the outdoor stability of PCDTBT:PC71BM based bulk heterojunction organic solar cells for over the course of a year. We find that the devices undergo a burn-in process lasting 450 hours followed by a TS80 lifetime of up to 6200 hours. We conclude that in the most stable devices, the observed TS80 lifetime is limited by thermally-induced stress between the device layers, as well as materials degradation as a result of edge-ingress of water or moisture through the encapsulation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't