Issue 26, 2017

Relating polymer chemical structure to the stability of polymer:fullerene solar cells

Abstract

The design of novel polymers has brought more attention to bulk heterojunction polymer:fullerene solar cells in the past decade. A typical example is the synthesis, through chemical structure engineering, of the benzodithiophene-co-thieno[3,4-b]thiophene (BDT-TT) polymers leading to power conversion efficiency of over 10%. In this work, we study the stability for a set of PBDT-TT polymers. We conduct a systematic UV-degradation study on the solar cells. Most importantly, the paper shows clearly the effect of polymer chemical structure on the UV-degradation pathway of the solar cells. We find that based on the polymer chemical structure, solar cells of polymers with alkoxy side chains are more stable (<20% loss in PCE) than those with alkylthienyl side chains (∼48% loss in PCE) over the period of study. These findings pave the way for new materials that yield efficient as well as stable organic solar cells.

Graphical abstract: Relating polymer chemical structure to the stability of polymer:fullerene solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Apr 2017
Accepted
08 Jun 2017
First published
21 Jun 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2017,5, 6611-6619

Relating polymer chemical structure to the stability of polymer:fullerene solar cells

N. Y. Doumon, G. Wang, R. C. Chiechi and L. J. A. Koster, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2017, 5, 6611 DOI: 10.1039/C7TC01455D

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