Predicting thermal stability of organic solar cells through real-time capacitive techniques (Presentation Recording)

Marta Tessarolo; Antonio Guerrero; Mirko Seri; Mario Prosa; Margherita Bolognesi; Germà Garcia Belmonte

doi:10.1117/12.2186998

5 October 2015 Predicting thermal stability of organic solar cells through real-time capacitive techniques (Presentation Recording)

Marta Tessarolo, Antonio Guerrero, Mirko Seri, Mario Prosa, Margherita Bolognesi, Germà Garcia Belmonte

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9567, Organic Photovoltaics XVI; 956715 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2186998
Event: SPIE Organic Photonics + Electronics, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Bulk Heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells have reached Power Conversion Efficiencies (PCE) over 10% but to be a competitive product long lifetimes are mandatory. In this view, guidelines for the prediction and optimization of the device stability are crucial to generate improved materials for efficient and stable BHJ devices. For encapsulated cells, degradation mechanisms can be mainly ascribed to external agents such as light and temperature. In particular, thermal degradation appears to be related not only to the BHJ morphology but also to the adjacent interfaces. Therefore, in order to have a complete description of the thermal stability of a BHJ cell, it is necessary to consider the entire stack degradation processes by using techniques enabling a direct investigation on working devices. Here, five different donor polymers were selected and the OPV performance of the corresponding BHJ devices were monitored during the thermal degradation at 85°C, showing an exponential decay of the corresponding PCEs. In parallel, we measured the geometrical capacitance of analogous OPV devices as a function of temperature and we observed that at a defined temperature (TMAX), typical for each polymer-based device, the capacitance starts to decrease. Combining all these results we found an evident and direct correlation between TMAX and the PCE decay parameters (obtained from capacitance-temperature an thermal measurements, respectively). This implies that the capacitance-method here presented is a fast, reliable and relatively simple method to predict the thermal stability of BHJ solar cells without the need to perform time-consuming thermal degradation tests.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Marta Tessarolo, Antonio Guerrero, Mirko Seri, Mario Prosa, Margherita Bolognesi, and Germà Garcia Belmonte "Predicting thermal stability of organic solar cells through real-time capacitive techniques (Presentation Recording)", Proc. SPIE 9567, Organic Photovoltaics XVI, 956715 (5 October 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2186998

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTATION

WATCH
PRESENTATION SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

KEYWORDS

Solar cells

Organic photovoltaics

Capacitance

Polymers

Temperature metrology

Heterojunctions

Interfaces

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years