TY - JOUR
T1 - Burn-in Free Nonfullerene-Based Organic Solar Cells
AU - Gasparini, Nicola
AU - Salvador, Michael
AU - Strohm, Sebastian
AU - Heumueller, Thomas
AU - Levchuk, Ievgen
AU - Wadsworth, Andrew
AU - Bannock, James H.
AU - de Mello, John C.
AU - Egelhaaf, Hans Joachim
AU - Baran, Derya
AU - McCulloch, Iain
AU - Brabec, Christoph J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2017/10/11
Y1 - 2017/10/11
N2 - Organic solar cells that are free of burn-in, the commonly observed rapid performance loss under light, are presented. The solar cells are based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) with varying molecular weights and a nonfullerene acceptor (rhodanine-benzothiadiazole-coupled indacenodithiophene, IDTBR) and are fabricated in air. P3HT:IDTBR solar cells light-soaked over the course of 2000 h lose about 5% of power conversion efficiency (PCE), in stark contrast to [6,6]-Phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM)-based solar cells whose PCE shows a burn-in that extends over several hundreds of hours and levels off at a loss of ≈34%. Replacing PCBM with IDTBR prevents short-circuit current losses due to fullerene dimerization and inhibits disorder-induced open-circuit voltage losses, indicating a very robust device operation that is insensitive to defect states. Small losses in fill factor over time are proposed to originate from polymer or interface defects. Finally, the combination of enhanced efficiency and stability in P3HT:IDTBR increases the lifetime energy yield by more than a factor of 10 when compared with the same type of devices using a fullerene-based acceptor instead.
AB - Organic solar cells that are free of burn-in, the commonly observed rapid performance loss under light, are presented. The solar cells are based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) with varying molecular weights and a nonfullerene acceptor (rhodanine-benzothiadiazole-coupled indacenodithiophene, IDTBR) and are fabricated in air. P3HT:IDTBR solar cells light-soaked over the course of 2000 h lose about 5% of power conversion efficiency (PCE), in stark contrast to [6,6]-Phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM)-based solar cells whose PCE shows a burn-in that extends over several hundreds of hours and levels off at a loss of ≈34%. Replacing PCBM with IDTBR prevents short-circuit current losses due to fullerene dimerization and inhibits disorder-induced open-circuit voltage losses, indicating a very robust device operation that is insensitive to defect states. Small losses in fill factor over time are proposed to originate from polymer or interface defects. Finally, the combination of enhanced efficiency and stability in P3HT:IDTBR increases the lifetime energy yield by more than a factor of 10 when compared with the same type of devices using a fullerene-based acceptor instead.
KW - degradation
KW - light-soaking stability
KW - nonfullerene acceptor
KW - organic solar cells
KW - P3HT
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85021759684&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85021759684&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/aenm.201700770
DO - 10.1002/aenm.201700770
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85021759684
SN - 1614-6832
VL - 7
JO - Advanced Energy Materials
JF - Advanced Energy Materials
IS - 19
M1 - 1700770
ER -