Comparative Indoor and Outdoor Degradation of Organic Photovoltaic Cells via Inter-laboratory Collaboration

Charles Owens, Gretta Mae Ferguson, Martin Hermenau, Eszter Voroshazi, Yulia Galagan, Birger Zimmermann, Roland Rösch, Dechan Angmo, Gerardo Teran-Escobar, Christian Uhrich, Ronn Andriessen, Harald Hoppe, Uli Würfel, Monica Lira-Cantu, Frederik C Krebs, David M. Tanenbaum

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Abstract

We report on the degradation of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells in both indoor and outdoor environments. Eight different research groups contributed state of the art OPV cells to be studied at Pomona College. Power conversion efficiency and fill factor were determined from IV curves collected at regular intervals over six to eight months. Similarly prepared devices were measured indoors, outdoors, and after dark storage. Device architectures are compared. Cells kept indoors performed better than outdoors due to the lack of temperature and humidity extremes. Encapsulated cells performed better due to the minimal oxidation. Some devices showed steady aging but many failed catastrophically due to corrosion of electrodes not active device layers. Degradation of cells kept in dark storage was minimal over periods up to one year.
Original languageEnglish
Article number8010001
JournalPolymers
Volume8
Issue number1
Number of pages8
ISSN2073-4360
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Degradation effects
  • Environmental degradation
  • Organic photovoltaic cells
  • Outdoor testing
  • Polymer photovoltaic cells
  • Small molecule photovoltaic cells
  • Power conversion efficiency
  • Stability

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