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Han J, Xu H, Paleti SHK, Sharma A, Baran D. Understanding photochemical degradation mechanisms in photoactive layer materials for organic solar cells. Chem Soc Rev 2024. [PMID: 38869459 DOI: 10.1039/d4cs00132j] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2024]
Abstract
Over the past decades, the field of organic solar cells (OSCs) has witnessed a significant evolution in materials chemistry, which has resulted in a remarkable enhancement of device performance, achieving efficiencies of over 19%. The photoactive layer materials in OSCs play a crucial role in light absorption, charge generation, transport and stability. To facilitate the scale-up of OSCs, it is imperative to address the photostability of these electron acceptor and donor materials, as their photochemical degradation process remains a challenge during the photo-to-electric conversion. In this review, we present an overview of the development of electron acceptor and donor materials, emphasizing the crucial aspects of their chemical stability behavior that are linked to the photostability of OSCs. Throughout each section, we highlight the photochemical degradation pathways for electron acceptor and donor materials, and their link to device degradation. We also discuss the existing interdisciplinary challenges and obstacles that impede the development of photostable materials. Finally, we offer insights into strategies aimed at enhancing photochemical stability and discuss future directions for developing photostable photo-active layers, facilitating the commercialization of OSCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianhua Han
- Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE), Physical Science and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- Institut für Anorganische Chemie and Institute for Sustainable Chemistry & Catalysis with Boron (ICB), Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany.
| | - Han Xu
- Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE), Physical Science and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
| | - Sri Harish Kumar Paleti
- Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE), Physical Science and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296, Göteborg, Sweden
| | - Anirudh Sharma
- Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE), Physical Science and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
| | - Derya Baran
- Materials Science and Engineering Program (MSE), Physical Science and Engineering Division (PSE), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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Müller D, Jiang E, Campos Guzmán L, Rivas Lázaro P, Baretzky C, Bogati S, Zimmermann B, Würfel U. Ultra-Stable ITO-Free Organic Solar Cells and Modules Processed from Non-Halogenated Solvents under Indoor Illumination. SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2024; 20:e2305437. [PMID: 37863807 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202305437] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2023] [Revised: 10/07/2023] [Indexed: 10/22/2023]
Abstract
Organic Photovoltaics (OPV) is a very promising technology to harvest artificial illumination and power smart devices of the Internet of Things (IoT). Efficiencies as high as 30.2% have been reported for OPVs under warm white light-emitting diode (LED) light. This is due to the narrow spectrum of indoor light, which leads to an optimal bandgap of ≈1.9 eV. Under full sunlight, OPV devices often suffer from poor stability compared to the established inorganic PV technologies such as crystalline silicon. This study focuses on a potentially very cost-effective Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) free cell stack with absorber materials processed from non-halogenated solvents. These organic solar cells and modules with efficiencies up to 21% can already achieve remarkable stabilities under typical indoor illumination. Aging under 50,000 lux LED lighting leads to very little degradation after more than 11 000 h. This light dose corresponds to more than 110 years under 500 lux. For modules encapsulated with a flexible barrier, extrapolated lifetimes of more than 41 years are achieved. This shows that OPV is mature for the specific application under indoor illumination. Due to the large number of potential organic semiconducting materials, further efficiency increase can be expected.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Müller
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
- Freiburg Materials Research Center FMF, University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Str. 21, 79104, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Ershuai Jiang
- Cluster of Excellence livMatS, University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 105, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Laura Campos Guzmán
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Paula Rivas Lázaro
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Clemens Baretzky
- Freiburg Materials Research Center FMF, University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Str. 21, 79104, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Shankar Bogati
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Birger Zimmermann
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
| | - Uli Würfel
- Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
- Freiburg Materials Research Center FMF, University of Freiburg, Stefan-Meier-Str. 21, 79104, Freiburg, Germany
- Cluster of Excellence livMatS, University of Freiburg, Georges-Köhler-Allee 105, 79110, Freiburg, Germany
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Zhang KN, Du XY, Yan L, Pu YJ, Tajima K, Wang X, Hao XT. Organic Photovoltaic Stability: Understanding the Role of Engineering Exciton and Charge Carrier Dynamics from Recent Progress. SMALL METHODS 2024; 8:e2300397. [PMID: 37204077 DOI: 10.1002/smtd.202300397] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2023] [Revised: 04/25/2023] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Benefiting from the synergistic development of material design, device engineering, and the mechanistic understanding of device physics, the certified power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of single-junction non-fullerene organic solar cells (OSCs) have already reached a very high value of exceeding 19%. However, in addition to PCEs, the poor stability is now a challenging obstacle for commercial applications of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). Herein, recent progress made in exploring operational mechanisms, anomalous photoelectric behaviors, and improving long-term stability in non-fullerene OSCs are highlighted from a novel and previously largely undiscussed perspective of engineering exciton and charge carrier pathways. Considering the intrinsic connection among multiple temporal-scale photocarrier dynamics, multi-length scale morphologies, and photovoltaic performance in OPVs, this review delineates and establishes a comprehensive and in-depth property-function relationship for evaluating the actual device stability. Moreover, this review has also provided some valuable photophysical insights into employing the advanced characterization techniques such as transient absorption spectroscopy and time-resolved fluorescence imagings. Finally, some of the remaining major challenges related to this topic are proposed toward the further advances of enhancing long-term operational stability in non-fullerene OSCs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kang-Ning Zhang
- School of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, 250100, P. R. China
| | - Xiao-Yan Du
- School of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, 250100, P. R. China
| | - Lei Yan
- Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China
| | - Yong-Jin Pu
- RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Keisuke Tajima
- RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS), 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
| | - Xingzhu Wang
- Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518055, P. R. China
- School of Electrical Engineering, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, P. R. China
| | - Xiao-Tao Hao
- School of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, 250100, P. R. China
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science, School of Chemistry, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia
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Balasubramanian S, León-Luna MÁ, Romero B, Madsen M, Turkovic V. Vitamin C for Photo-Stable Non-fullerene-acceptor-Based Organic Solar Cells. ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES 2023; 15:39647-39656. [PMID: 37552771 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c06321] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 08/10/2023]
Abstract
The recent advent of the new class of organic molecules, the so-called non-fullerene acceptors, has resulted in skyrocketing power conversion efficiencies of organic solar cells. However, rapid degradation occurs under illumination, particularly when photocatalytic metal oxide electron transport layers are used in these devices. We introduced vitamin C (ascorbic acid) into the organic solar cells as a photostabilizer and systematically studied its photostabilizing effect on inverted PBDB-T:IT-4F devices. The presence of vitamin C as an antioxidant layer between the ZnO electron transport layer and the photoactive layer strongly suppressed the photocatalytic effect of ZnO that induces NFA photodegradation. Upon 96 h of exposure to AM 1.5G 1 Sun irradiation, the reference devices lost 64% of their initial efficiency, while those containing vitamin C lost only 38%. The UV-visible absorption, impedance spectroscopy, and light-dependent voltage and current measurements reveal that vitamin C reduces the photobleaching of NFA molecules and suppresses the charge recombination. This simple approach using a low-cost, naturally occurring antioxidant, provides an efficient strategy for improving photostability of organic semiconductor-based devices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sambathkumar Balasubramanian
- SDU Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and Thin-film Energy Devices─CAPE, Mads Clausen Institute (MCI), Alsion 2, Sønderborg 6400, Denmark
- SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Odense 5230, Denmark
| | - Miguel Ángel León-Luna
- SDU Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and Thin-film Energy Devices─CAPE, Mads Clausen Institute (MCI), Alsion 2, Sønderborg 6400, Denmark
- SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Odense 5230, Denmark
| | - Beatriz Romero
- Electronic Technology Area, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Mostoles 28933, Spain
| | - Morten Madsen
- SDU Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and Thin-film Energy Devices─CAPE, Mads Clausen Institute (MCI), Alsion 2, Sønderborg 6400, Denmark
- SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Odense 5230, Denmark
| | - Vida Turkovic
- SDU Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and Thin-film Energy Devices─CAPE, Mads Clausen Institute (MCI), Alsion 2, Sønderborg 6400, Denmark
- SDU Climate Cluster, University of Southern Denmark, Odense 5230, Denmark
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Zhong Z, Liu X, Li L, Han Z, He Y, Xu X, Hai J, Zhu R, Yu J. An asymmetric A-D-π-A type non-fullerene acceptor enables high-detectivity near-infrared organic photodiodes. Sci China Chem 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s11426-022-1385-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
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