Proceedings of 6th International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV14)
Publication date: 1st March 2014
Organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) are one of the most promising applications of organic semiconductors due to their compatibility with flexible plastic substrates resulting in light weight, inexpensive and decorative products. Inverted device architecture bulk heterojunction (BHJ) OPVs offer several advantages over regular device architectures including improvement of operational device lifetimes, ease of device fabrication and lower manufacturing cost. While the electrical failure mechanisms in OPVs have been thoroughly investigated, little is known about their mechanical stability, which is important and critical to ensure long term reliability. The characteristic thin films stresses of each layer present in OPVs, in combination with other possible fabrication, handling and operational stresses, provide the mechanical driving force for delamination of weak interfaces and even their decohesion, leading to a loss of device integrity and performance [1]. In this study, we developed a technique to probe for weak layers or interfaces in inverted polymer:fullerene solar cells, establishing a new set-up for the so-called probe tack [2]. It is based on a well-established technique used to study adhesion properties of soft polymers on hard surfaces. The new technique consists of adding an adhesive layer to the top of the sample of interest, followed by a very controlled pulling in perpendicular to the surface at set speed ultimately leading to a break at its weakest point in the device layer structure. The created surface is then characterized by contact angle measurement, optical microscopy and AFM.
As a model device structure for this study an inverted geometry OPV device has been chosen in which the organic layers have been deposed by doctor blading and spin-coating. The choice of the adhesive, the contact time and the pressure before pulling, the probe area and the pulling speed have been thoroughly evaluated, leading to the best conditions to perform the measurements.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2011 under grant agreement ESTABLIS n° 290022).
[1] Jørgensen, M.; Norrman, K.; Gevorgyan, S. A.; Tromholt, T.; Andreasen, B. and Krebs F. C. “Stability of Polymer Solar Cells.” Advanced Materials 24,5 (2012), 580–612 [2] C. Creton and P. Fabre, Adhesion Science and Engineering I, Elsevier (2002).
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