Non-fullerene acceptor organic photovoltaics with intrinsic operational lifetimes over 30 years

Yongxi Li; Xiaheng Huang; Kan Ding; Hafiz K M Sheriff Jr; Long Ye; Haoran Liu; Chang-Zhi Li; Harald Ade; Stephen R Forrest

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25718-w

Non-fullerene acceptor organic photovoltaics with intrinsic operational lifetimes over 30 years

Nat Commun. 2021 Sep 14;12(1):5419. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25718-w.

Authors

Yongxi Li¹, Xiaheng Huang¹, Kan Ding¹, Hafiz K M Sheriff Jr², Long Ye^{3

4}, Haoran Liu⁵, Chang-Zhi Li⁵, Harald Ade³, Stephen R Forrest^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Departments of Electrical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering, and Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
² Applied Physics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA.
³ Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Laboratories (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Tianjin University, 300072, Tianjin, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, 310027, Hangzhou, China.
⁶ Departments of Electrical Engineering, Material Science and Engineering, and Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA. stevefor@umich.edu.
⁷ Applied Physics Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA. stevefor@umich.edu.

Abstract

Organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) have the potential of becoming a productive renewable energy technology if the requirements of low cost, high efficiency and prolonged lifetime are simultaneously fulfilled. So far, the remaining unfulfilled promise of this technology is its inadequate operational lifetime. Here, we demonstrate that the instability of NFA solar cells arises primarily from chemical changes at organic/inorganic interfaces bounding the bulk heterojunction active region. Encapsulated devices stabilized by additional protective buffer layers as well as the integration of a simple solution processed ultraviolet filtering layer, maintain 94% of their initial efficiency under simulated, 1 sun intensity, AM1.5 G irradiation for 1900 hours at 55 °C. Accelerated aging is also induced by exposure of light illumination intensities up to 27 suns, and operation temperatures as high as 65 °C. An extrapolated intrinsic lifetime of > 5.6 × 10⁴ h is obtained, which is equivalent to 30 years outdoor exposure.

Abstract

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