Fundamentals of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells: An overview of stability/degradation issues and strategies for improvement

Rafique, Shazia; Abdullah, Shahino Mah; Sulaiman, Khaulah; Iwamoto, Mitsumasa

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2017.12.008

Cited by 201 publications

(148 citation statements)

References 170 publications

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“…While the development of new materials is mainly driven by the goal to increase the device efficiency, using materials design to improve the operation stability of organic solar cells remains to date too little investigated. This is somehow surprising as multiple degradation pathways can occur in organic solar cells under realistic operation conditions that severely restrict their lifetime and, therefore, represent one of the key obstacles for commercialization of this technology . Generally, indeed, practically useful organic solar cells are encapsulated using appropriate barrier coatings to minimize the penetration of oxygen and moisture into the active layer of the cell, thus emphasizing the importance of intrinsic degradation pathways …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Killing Organic Photovoltaics: Light‐Induced Crosslinking as a General Degradation Pathway of Organic Conjugated Molecules

Yamilova

Martynov

Brandvold

et al. 2020

Advanced Energy Materials

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In view of a rapid development and increase in efficiency of organic solar cells, reaching their long‐term operational stability represents now one of the main challenges to be addressed on the way toward commercialization of this photovoltaic technology. However, intrinsic degradation pathways occurring in organic solar cells under realistic operational conditions remain poorly understood. The light‐induced dimerization of the fullerene‐based acceptor materials discovered recently is considered to be one of the main causes for burn‐in degradation of organic solar cells. In this work, it is shown that not only the fullerene derivatives but also different types of conjugated polymers and small molecules undergo similar light‐induced crosslinking regardless of their chemical composition and structure. In the case of conjugated polymers, crosslinking of macromolecules leads to a rapid increase in their molecular weight and consequent loss of solubility, which can be revealed in a straightforward way by gel permeation chromatography analysis via a reduction/loss of signal and/or smaller retention times. Results of this work, thus, shift the paradigm of research in the field toward designing a new generation of organic absorbers with enhanced intrinsic photochemical stability in order to reach practically useful operation lifetimes required for successful commercialization of organic photovoltaics.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What is Killing Organic Photovoltaics: Light‐Induced Crosslinking as a General Degradation Pathway of Organic Conjugated Molecules

Yamilova

Martynov

Brandvold

et al. 2020

Advanced Energy Materials

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show abstract

“…Toward the commercialization of OSCs, it is urgent to simultaneously realize OSCs with high PCEs and stability against oxygen/moisture ingress, irradiation, high temperature, and mechanical property. In addition to active layer, the stability of electrodes, interfacial layers, and device structure should also be considered …”

Section: Conclusion and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The polar interfacial layer materials can fine tune the work function of top electrode even for reducing the high‐work‐function Au and Cu. The polar interfacial layer materials fabricate inverted OSCs using high work function top electrode to resist oxygen and water in ambient . (4) Encapsulation strategy is conventional and efficient but not mentioned in this paper.…”

Section: Conclusion and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges to the Stability of Active Layer Materials in Organic Solar Cells

Wang

2020

Macromol. Rapid Commun.

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In the past 20 years, organic solar cells (OSCs) have made great progress in pursuing high power‐conversion efficiencies, reaching the application threshold. Instead, device stability is becoming particularly important toward commercialization. There are many factors influencing the stability of OSCs, such as light, heat, humidity, oxygen, as well as device structure. Active layer materials, as the most critical functional layer in the devices, are greatly affected by these factors in terms of both efficiency and stability. Herein, it is desirable and urgent to summarize methods for obtaining active layer materials with long‐term stability, mainly focusing on the chemical structure and blending morphology. Meanwhile, the corresponding degraded mechanism of OSCs is concluded and analyzed. In this outlook, challenges for developing high‐performance and stable OSCs are discussed.

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“…On the other hand, the produced OSC performances have been considered dependent on a delicate and highly empirical relationship between the processing method, the solvents, the additives, the drying, the materials, the substrate, and perhaps even the operator [15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. It follows that the production workflow is strongly affected by an unavoidable, and often extensive, cycle of tries and tests until optimal manufacturing solutions are finally found.…”

Section: Device Fabrication Workflowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing the Organic Solar Cell Manufacturing Process by Means of AFM Measurements and Neural Networks

et al. 2018

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Abstract:In this paper we devise a neural-network-based model to improve the production workflow of organic solar cells (OSCs). The investigated neural model is used to reckon the relation between the OSC's generated power and several device's properties such as the geometrical parameters and the active layers thicknesses. Such measurements were collected during an experimental campaign conducted on 80 devices. The collected data suggest that the maximum generated power depends on the active layer thickness. The mathematical model of such a relation has been determined by using a feedforward neural network (FFNN) architecture as a universal function approximator. The performed simulations show good agreement between simulated and experimental data with an overall error of about 9%. The obtained results demonstrate that the use of a neural model can be useful to improve the OSC manufacturing processes.

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Fundamentals of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells: An overview of stability/degradation issues and strategies for improvement

Cited by 201 publications

References 170 publications

What is Killing Organic Photovoltaics: Light‐Induced Crosslinking as a General Degradation Pathway of Organic Conjugated Molecules

What is Killing Organic Photovoltaics: Light‐Induced Crosslinking as a General Degradation Pathway of Organic Conjugated Molecules

Challenges to the Stability of Active Layer Materials in Organic Solar Cells

Optimizing the Organic Solar Cell Manufacturing Process by Means of AFM Measurements and Neural Networks

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