DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th:PCBM Based Solar Cells

Abstract

Abstract 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 which are presented 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 nanomorpholgy in the fullerene phase of a polymer cell. To circumvent this and achieve highly stable and efficient devices, a robust nanocrystalline ordering is induced in the PCBM phase prior to UV illumination. In that event, PTB7‐Th:PC 71 BM cells are shown to exhibit T 80 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.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [4]
  1. ICFO‐Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona) Spain
  2. Materials Sciences Division Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Berkeley CA 94720 USA, Department of Physics and Astronomy Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai 200240 P. R. China
  3. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering University of Massachusetts Amherst MA 01003 USA
  4. ICFO‐Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona) Spain, Departament de Física Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya 08222 Terrassa Spain
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1401310
Resource Type:
Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Advanced Energy Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Advanced Energy Materials Journal Volume: 7 Journal Issue: 21; Journal ID: ISSN 1614-6832
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Liu, Quan, Toudert, Johann, Liu, Feng, Mantilla‐Perez, Paola, Bajo, Miguel Montes, Russell, Thomas P., and Martorell, Jordi. Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th:PCBM Based Solar Cells. Germany: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1002/aenm.201701201.
Liu, Quan, Toudert, Johann, Liu, Feng, Mantilla‐Perez, Paola, Bajo, Miguel Montes, Russell, Thomas P., & Martorell, Jordi. Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th:PCBM Based Solar Cells. Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701201
Liu, Quan, Toudert, Johann, Liu, Feng, Mantilla‐Perez, Paola, Bajo, Miguel Montes, Russell, Thomas P., and Martorell, Jordi. Mon . "Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th:PCBM Based Solar Cells". Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701201.
@article{osti_1401310,
title = {Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th:PCBM Based Solar Cells},
author = {Liu, Quan and Toudert, Johann and Liu, Feng and Mantilla‐Perez, Paola and Bajo, Miguel Montes and Russell, Thomas P. and Martorell, Jordi},
abstractNote = {Abstract 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 which are presented 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 nanomorpholgy in the fullerene phase of a polymer cell. To circumvent this and achieve highly stable and efficient devices, a robust nanocrystalline ordering is induced in the PCBM phase prior to UV illumination. In that event, PTB7‐Th:PC 71 BM cells are shown to exhibit T 80 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.},
doi = {10.1002/aenm.201701201},
journal = {Advanced Energy Materials},
number = 21,
volume = 7,
place = {Germany},
year = {Mon Jul 17 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Mon Jul 17 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701201

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 64 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Conflicted Effects of a Solvent Additive on PTB7:PC 71 BM Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, March 2015

  • Kim, Wanjung; Kim, Jung Kyu; Kim, Eunchul
  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 119, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1021/jp510996w

Morphological and electrical control of fullerene dimerization determines organic photovoltaic stability
journal, January 2016

  • Heumueller, Thomas; Mateker, William R.; Distler, Andreas
  • Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 9, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1039/C5EE02912K

23.6%-efficient monolithic perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells with improved stability
journal, February 2017

  • Bush, Kevin A.; Palmstrom, Axel F.; Yu, Zhengshan J.
  • Nature Energy, Vol. 2, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.9

Stability of Polymer Solar Cells
journal, December 2011

  • Jørgensen, Mikkel; Norrman, Kion; Gevorgyan, Suren A.
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201104187

The Mechanism of Burn-in Loss in a High Efficiency Polymer Solar Cell
journal, October 2011

  • Peters, Craig H.; Sachs-Quintana, I. T.; Mateker, William R.
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201103010

Single-junction polymer solar cells with high efficiency and photovoltage
journal, February 2015


Correlation of energy disorder and open-circuit voltage in hybrid perovskite solar cells
journal, January 2016


Modern plastic solar cells: materials, mechanisms and modeling
journal, July 2013


Hole Transport in Poly(phenylene vinylene)/Methanofullerene Bulk-Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, September 2004

  • Melzer, C.; Koop, E. J.; Mihailetchi, V. D.
  • Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 14, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1002/adfm.200305156

A Direct Evidence of Morphological Degradation on a Nanometer Scale in Polymer Solar Cells
journal, September 2013

  • Schaffer, Christoph J.; Palumbiny, Claudia M.; Niedermeier, Martin A.
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 46
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201302854

Light-induced generation of free radicals by fullerene derivatives: an important degradation pathway in organic photovoltaics?
journal, January 2017

  • Inasaridze, L. N.; Shames, A. I.; Martynov, I. V.
  • Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 5, Issue 17
  • DOI: 10.1039/C7TA00175D

Fullerene Derivative-Doped Zinc Oxide Nanofilm as the Cathode of Inverted Polymer Solar Cells with Low-Bandgap Polymer (PTB7-Th) for High Performance
journal, August 2013

  • Liao, Sih-Hao; Jhuo, Hong-Jyun; Cheng, Yu-Shan
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 34
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201301476

Understanding the Morphology of PTB7:PCBM Blends in Organic Photovoltaics
journal, October 2013

  • Liu, Feng; Zhao, Wei; Tumbleston, John R.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201301377

Charge Photogeneration in Organic Solar Cells
journal, November 2010

  • Clarke, Tracey M.; Durrant, James R.
  • Chemical Reviews, Vol. 110, Issue 11, p. 6736-6767
  • DOI: 10.1021/cr900271s

Organic Light Detectors: Photodiodes and Phototransistors
journal, March 2013

  • Baeg, Kang-Jun; Binda, Maddalena; Natali, Dario
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 31
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201204979

Charge Transport and Recombination in Low-Bandgap Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cell using Bis-adduct Fullerene
journal, October 2011

  • Azimi, Hamed; Senes, Alessia; Scharber, Markus C.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 1, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201100331

Highly efficient tandem white organic light-emitting diodes based upon C60/NaT4 organic heterojunction as charge generation layer
journal, January 2012

  • Chen, Yonghua; Tian, Hongkun; Chen, Jiangshan
  • Journal of Materials Chemistry, Vol. 22, Issue 17
  • DOI: 10.1039/c2jm30557g

Highly Flexible Transparent Electrodes Containing Ultrathin Silver for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells
journal, November 2015

  • Ghosh, Dhriti Sundar; Liu, Quan; Mantilla-Perez, Paola
  • Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 47
  • DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201503739

Neutral Water Splitting Catalysis with a High FF Triple Junction Polymer Cell
journal, April 2016


Performance enhancement of fullerene-based solar cells by light processing
journal, July 2013

  • Li, Zhe; Wong, Him Cheng; Huang, Zhenggang
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3227

Determining the optimum morphology in high-performance polymer-fullerene organic photovoltaic cells
journal, December 2013

  • Hedley, Gordon J.; Ward, Alexander J.; Alekseev, Alexander
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3867

Reliability of Small Molecule Organic Photovoltaics with Electron-Filtering Compound Buffer Layers
journal, August 2016

  • Burlingame, Quinn; Song, Byeongseop; Ciammaruchi, Laura
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 21
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201601094

Consensus stability testing protocols for organic photovoltaic materials and devices
journal, May 2011

  • Reese, Matthew O.; Gevorgyan, Suren A.; Jørgensen, Mikkel
  • Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 95, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2011.01.036

The Active Layer Morphology of Organic Solar Cells Probed with Grazing Incidence Scattering Techniques
journal, February 2014


Analysis of Triplet Exciton Loss Pathways in PTB7:PC71BM Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, July 2016

  • Kraus, Hannes; Heiber, Michael C.; Väth, Stefan
  • Scientific Reports, Vol. 6, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/srep29158

Review: Fullerene based acceptors for efficient bulk heterojunction organic solar cell applications
journal, March 2017

  • Ganesamoorthy, Ramasamy; Sathiyan, Govindasamy; Sakthivel, Pachagounder
  • Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 161
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2016.11.024

Quantitative Determination of Organic Semiconductor Microstructure from the Molecular to Device Scale
journal, June 2012

  • Rivnay, Jonathan; Mannsfeld, Stefan C. B.; Miller, Chad E.
  • Chemical Reviews, Vol. 112, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1021/cr3001109

Charge-Transfer State Dynamics Following Hole and Electron Transfer in Organic Photovoltaic Devices
journal, December 2012

  • Bakulin, Artem A.; Dimitrov, Stoichko D.; Rao, Akshay
  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1021/jz301883y

Progress in Understanding Degradation Mechanisms and Improving Stability in Organic Photovoltaics
journal, December 2016


Photodegradation in Encapsulated Silole-Based Polymer: PCBM Solar Cells Investigated using Transient Absorption Spectroscopy and Charge Extraction Measurements
journal, July 2013

  • Clarke, Tracey M.; Lungenschmied, Christoph; Peet, Jeff
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201300337

Morphological Degradation in Low Bandgap Polymer Solar Cells - An In Operando Study
journal, July 2016

  • Schaffer, Christoph J.; Palumbiny, Claudia M.; Niedermeier, Martin A.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 19
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201600712

UV-Induced Oxygen Removal for Photostable, High-Efficiency PTB7-Th:PC 71 BM Photovoltaic Cells
journal, October 2016

  • Liu, Quan; Mantilla-Perez, Paola; Montes Bajo, Miguel
  • ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 42
  • DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b07985

Effect of Solvent Additive on Generation, Recombination, and Extraction in PTB7:PCBM Solar Cells: A Conclusive Experimental and Numerical Simulation Study
journal, April 2015

  • Kniepert, Juliane; Lange, Ilja; Heidbrink, Jan
  • The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 119, Issue 15
  • DOI: 10.1021/jp512721e

The Effect of PCBM Dimerization on the Performance of Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, August 2013

  • Distler, Andreas; Sauermann, Tobias; Egelhaaf, Hans-Joachim
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201300693

Characterization of the morphology of solution-processed bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaics
journal, December 2013


Photochemical origins of burn-in degradation in small molecular weight organic photovoltaic cells
journal, January 2015

  • Burlingame, Quinn; Tong, Xiaoran; Hankett, Jeanne
  • Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 8, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1039/C4EE03444A

Disorder-Induced Open-Circuit Voltage Losses in Organic Solar Cells During Photoinduced Burn-In
journal, May 2015

  • Heumueller, Thomas; Burke, Timothy M.; Mateker, William R.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201500111

Long-term stable polymer solar cells with significantly reduced burn-in loss
journal, December 2014

  • Kong, Jaemin; Song, Suhee; Yoo, Minji
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6688

A Selenophene Containing Benzodithiophene- alt -thienothiophene Polymer for Additive-Free High Performance Solar Cell
journal, January 2015

  • Chang, Wei-Hsuan; Meng, Lei; Dou, Letian
  • Macromolecules, Vol. 48, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1021/ma502132t

Efficient solar cells are more stable: the impact of polymer molecular weight on performance of organic photovoltaics
journal, January 2016

  • Ding, Z.; Kettle, J.; Horie, M.
  • Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 4, Issue 19
  • DOI: 10.1039/C6TA00721J

Procedures and Practices for Evaluating Thin-Film Solar Cell Stability
journal, September 2015

  • Roesch, Roland; Faber, Tobias; von Hauff, Elizabeth
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 20
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201501407

Efficient inverted top-emitting organic light-emitting diodes using ultrathin MoO3/C60 bilayer structure to enhance hole injection
journal, November 2009

  • Hou, Jianhua; Wu, Jiang; Xie, Zhiyuan
  • Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 20
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.3267084

Compatibility of PTB7 and [70]PCBM as a Key Factor for the Stability of PTB7:[70]PCBM Solar Cells
journal, April 2016

  • Bartesaghi, Davide; Ye, Gang; Chiechi, Ryan C.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 13
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201502338

Photodegradation and photostabilization of polymers, especially polystyrene: review
journal, August 2013


Absolute Measurement of Domain Composition and Nanoscale Size Distribution Explains Performance in PTB7:PC 71 BM Solar Cells
journal, October 2012

  • Collins, Brian A.; Li, Zhe; Tumbleston, John R.
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201200377

Analysis of burn-in photo degradation in low bandgap polymer PTB7 using photothermal deflection spectroscopy
journal, January 2016

  • Upama, Mushfika Baishakhi; Wright, Matthew; Puthen-Veettil, Binesh
  • RSC Advances, Vol. 6, Issue 106
  • DOI: 10.1039/C6RA23288D

For the Bright Future-Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells with Power Conversion Efficiency of 7.4%
journal, May 2010

  • Liang, Yongye; Xu, Zheng; Xia, Jiangbin
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 22, Issue 20, p. E135-E138
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.200903528

Analysis of the degradation mechanism of ITO-free organic solar cells under UV radiation
journal, February 2014

  • Sapkota, Subarna Babu; Fischer, Martin; Zimmermann, Birger
  • Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 121
  • DOI: 10.1016/j.solmat.2013.10.021

Reducing burn-in voltage loss in polymer solar cells by increasing the polymer crystallinity
journal, January 2014

  • Heumueller, Thomas; Mateker, William R.; Sachs-Quintana, I. T.
  • Energy Environ. Sci., Vol. 7, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01842G

Overcoming ultraviolet light instability of sensitized TiO2 with meso-superstructured organometal tri-halide perovskite solar cells
journal, December 2013

  • Leijtens, Tomas; Eperon, Giles E.; Pathak, Sandeep
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3885

High-efficiency inverted semi-transparent planar perovskite solar cells in substrate configuration
journal, December 2016