Lifetime Investigation of Highly Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Based on ITIC Derivatives under Different Light Sources

Elena Barulina^a^,^b, Pavlo Perkhun^a, Wolfgang Köntges^c, Martin Pfannmöller^c, Sadok Ben Dkhil^b, Jean-Jacques Simon^d, Olivier Margeat^a, Christine Videlot-Ackermann^a, Jörg Ackermann^a

^aAix-Marseille University, CINAM CNRS UMR, Aix Marseille Université, Marseille, 13288, France

^bDracula Technologies, 4 rue Georges Auric, 26000 Valence, France

^cCentre for Advanced Materials (CAM), Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany

^dAix-Marseille Univ., Univ. Toulon, UMR CNRS 7334, Institut Matériaux Microélectronique Nanoscience de Provence (IM2NP), Marseille, France

Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting19 (NFM19)

#OPV19. Organic Photovoltaics: recent breakthroughs, advanced characterization and modelling

Berlin, Germany, 2019 November 3rd - 8th

Organizers: Jörg Ackermann and Uli Würfel

Oral, Elena Barulina, presentation 233
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2019.233
Publication date: 18th July 2019

At nowadays, polymeric solar cells commonly integrate into new generation photovoltaic market because they give such advantages as high performance, processing on a large surface, flexibility and low cost. One year ago, the tandem organic solar cells with PCE over 17 % was published [1]. This colossal improving power conventional efficiency was enabled by developing of a new non-fullerene acceptor (NFA). Nonetheless, the investigation of long-term photostability of novel highly efficient materials and corresponding devices is highly important for industrialization.

Recently, a study devoted to the investigation of novel NFA, called ITIC- derivatives (ITIC, ITIC-4F, ITIC-M, ITIC-DM, ITIC-Th) indicated that the acceptor with fluorine substitutes is the most photostable [2]. Nonetheless, the stability of the solar cells was only studied under LED light, while laboratory weathering under continuous illumination at AM 1.5 [3] were missing.

In this context, the goal of this work is to consider in detail the photostability of high efficiency organic solar cells using different ITIC derivatives by comparing the degradation processes of NFA based solar cells under illumination at AM 1.5 and LED. Furthermore, in order to compare the NFA to fullerene acceptors, we developed a PCE10:PC₇₀BM blend system that is fully stable [4] under laboratory weathering (ISOS-L-1) conditions. This demonstrates the stability of our device structure including interfacial layers [5], [6] and allows to evaluate the NFA related degradation processes in the corresponding solar cells. The stabilized PCE-10:PC₇₀BM solar cells are compared to PCE-12:ITIC, PCE13:ITIC-4F and PBDBT-2Cl:ITIC-4F. Furthermore, detailed characterizations of the device degradation in relation to the morphology will be discussed using atomic force microscopy and spectral imaging analyses from analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy. We also demonstrate the changing of absorption spectra and external quantum efficiency during exposition time. Whilst PCE-10:PC₇₀BM solar cells are found to be stable with an efficiency of 7%, we demonstrate that PCE-12:ITIC (efficiency of 10%), PCE13:ITIC-4F (efficiency of 11%), PBDBT-2Cl:ITIC-4F (efficiency of 11%) solar cells degrade extremely quick under simulated AM 1.5 illumination highlighted that LED light clearly reduced device degradation. We also discuss treatment techniques aiming to improve the stability of ITIC based solar cells by improving the crystallinity of the polymer blend.

References:

[1] Meng, L.; Zhang, Y.; Wan, X.; Li, C.; Zhang, X.; Wang, Y.; Ke, X.; Xiao, Z.; Ding, L.; Xia, R.; Yip, H.L. Organic and solution-processed tandem solar cells with 17.3% efficiency. Science, 2018, 361, 6407, 1094-1098.

[2] Du, X.; Heumueller, T.; Gruber, W.; Classen, A.; Unruh, T.; Li, N.; Brabec, C.J. Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Based on Non-fullerene Acceptors with Potential Device Lifetime Approaching 10 Years. Joule, 2019, 3, 1, 215-226.

[3] Reese, M.O.; Gevorgyan, S.A.; Jørgensen, M.; Bundgaard, E.; Kurtz, S.R.; Ginley, D.S.; Olson, D.C.; Lloyd, M.T.; Morvillo, P.; Katz, E.A.; Elschner, A. Consensus stability testing protocols for organic photovoltaic materials and devices. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells. 2011, 95, 5, 1253-1267.

[4] Liu, Q.; Toudert, J.; Liu, F.; Mantilla‐Perez, P.; Bajo, M.M.; Russell, T.P; Martorell, J. Circumventing UV Light Induced Nanomorphology Disorder to Achieve Long Lifetime PTB7‐Th: PCBM Based Solar Cells. Advanced Energy Materials. 2017, 7, 21, 1701201.

[5] [4] Dkhil, S.B.; Pfannmöller, M.; Saba, M.I.; Gaceur, M.; Heidari; H., Videlot‐Ackermann, C.; Margeat, O.; Guerrero, A.; Bisquert, J.; Garcia‐Belmonte, G.; Mattoni, A. Toward high‐temperature stability of PTB7‐based bulk heterojunction solar cells: impact of fullerene size and solvent additive. Advanced Energy Materials. 2017, 7, 4, 1601486.

[6] [5] Ben Dkhil, S.; Pfannmöller, M.; Schröder, R.R.; Alkarsifi, R.; Gaceur, M.; Köntges, W.; Heidari, H.; Bals, S.; Margeat, O.; Ackermann, J.; Videlot-Ackermann, C. Interplay of interfacial layers and blend composition to reduce thermal degradation of polymer solar cells at high temperature. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 2018, 10, 4, 3874-3884. SMASH

Acknowledgements:

The research is supported by CIFRE Agreement 2017/0529 between Dracula Technologies and CINaM.

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