Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T02:21:13.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Degradation kinetics in different polymer–fullerene blends investigated by electron spin resonance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2018

Marek Havlicek ,
Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci  and
Markus C. Scharber
Marek Havlicek
Affiliation:
Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS), Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz A-4040, Austria; and Department of Primary Nanometrology and Technical Length, Czech Metrology Institute, Brno 638 00, Czech Republic
Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci
Affiliation:
Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS), Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz A-4040, Austria
Markus C. Scharber*
Affiliation:
Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS), Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz A-4040, Austria
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

We investigate the photostability of a set of organic semiconductor blends comprising a conjugated polymer as the donor and a fullerene as the acceptor using electron spin resonance (ESR). In the absence of oxygen, all blends show excellent stability. Even after several hundred hours of exposure to solar or UV radiation, the ESR spectra and the recombination of photoinduced charges recorded at low temperature are found to be unchanged. By contrast, the presence of oxygen leads to a fast light-induced degradation rendering the ability of the donor/acceptor system to form photoinduced charge carriers. Our findings suggest that conjugated polymer–fullerene blends exhibit very good photostability and that oxygen needs to be excluded in optoelectronic applications. Our findings also suggest that at low temperature, a universal recombination process of long-lived photoinduced charges is active, which does not depend on the electronic structure or the morphology of the investigated materials.

Keywords

organicsemiconductingpolymer
Type
Invited Article
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 33 , Issue 13: Focus Issue: Stabilization of Organic Electronic Materials and Devices , 14 July 2018 , pp. 1853 - 1859
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (2018). Available at: www.nrel.gov/pv/assets/images/efficiency-chart.png (accessed June 5, 2018).Google Scholar
Jørgensen, M., Norrman, K., Gevorgyan, S., Tromholt, T., Andreasen, B., and Krebs, F.C.: Stability of polymer solar cells. Adv. Mater. 24, 580–612 (2012).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grancini, G., De Bastiani, M., Martino, N., Fazzi, D., Egelhaaf, H-J., Sauermann, T., Antognazza, M.R., Lanzani, G., Caironi, M., and Franco, L.: The critical role of interfacial dynamics in the stability of organic photovoltaic devices. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 16, 8294–8300 (2014).Google Scholar
Možíšková, P., Heinrichová, P., Šedina, M., Vala, M., David, J., and Weiter, M.: The influence of transport layers on the photodegradation stability of polymer solar cell structures. J. Polym. Eng. 34, 1–11 (2014).Google Scholar
Wang, X., Egelhaaf, H-J., Mack, H.G., Azimi, H., Brabec, C.J., Meixner, A.J., and Zhang, D.: Morphology related photodegradation of low-band-gap polymer blends. Adv. Energy Mater. 4, 1–12 (2014).Google Scholar
Street, R.A., Schoendorf, M., Roy, A., and Lee, J.H.: Interface state recombination in organic solar cells. Phys. Rev. Appl. 81, 1–12 (2010).Google Scholar
Dyakonov, V., Zoriniants, G., Scharber, M., Brabec, C.J., Janssen, R., Hummelen, J., and Sariciftci, N.: Photoinduced charge carriers in conjugated polymer–fullerene composites studied with light-induced electron-spin resonance. Phys. Rev. B 59, 8019–8025 (1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Susarova, D.K., Piven, N.P., Akkuratov, A.V., Frolova, L.A., Polinskaya, M.S., Ponomarenko, S.A., Babenko, S.D., and Troshin, P.A.: ESR spectroscopy as a powerful tool for probing the quality of conjugated polymers designed for photovoltaic applications. Chem. Commun. 51, 2239–2241 (2015).Google Scholar
Sperlich, A., Kraus, H., Deibel, C., Blok, H., Schmidt, J., and Dyakonov, V.: Reversible and irreversible interactions of poly(3-hexylthiophene) with oxygen studied by spin-sensitive methods. J. Phys. Chem. B 115, 13513–13518 (2011).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brabec, C.J., Gowrisanker, S., Halls, J.J.M., Laird, D., Jia, S., and Williams, S.P.: Polymer–fullerene bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Adv. Mater. 22, 3839–3856 (2010).Google Scholar
Carati, C., Bonoldi, L., and Po, R.: Density of trap states in organic photovoltaic materials from LESR studies of carrier recombination kinetics. Phys. Rev. B 84, 245205 (2011).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inasaridze, L.N., Shames, A.I., Martynov, I.V., Li, B., Mumyatov, A.V., Susarova, D.K., Katz, E.A., and Troshin, P.A.: Light-induced generation of free radicals by fullerene derivatives: An important degradation pathway in organic photovoltaics? J. Mater. Chem. A 5, 8044–8050 (2017).Google Scholar
Shames, A.I., Inasaridze, L.N., Akkuratov, A.V., Goryachev, A.E., Katz, E.A., and Troshin, P.A.: Assessing the outdoor photochemical stability of conjugated polymers by EPR spectroscopy. J. Mater. Chem. A 4, 13166–13170 (2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, N., Scharber, M., Brabec, C., and Sariciftci, N.: Low-temperature recombination kinetics of photoexcited persistent charge carriers in conjugated polymer/fullerene composite films. Phys. Rev. B 64, 1–7 (2001).Google Scholar
Udum, Y., Denk, P., Adam, G., Apaydin, D.H., Nevosad, A., Teichert, C., White, M.S., Sariciftci, N.S., and Scharber, M.C.: Inverted bulk-heterojunction solar cell with cross-linked hole-blocking layer. Org. Electron. 15, 997–1001 (2014).Google Scholar
Scharber, M.C.: Manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Salvador, M., Gasparini, N., Perea, J.D., Harish Paleti, S., Distler, A., Inasaridze, L.N., Troshin, P.A., Lüer, L., Egelhaaf, H-J., and Brabec, C.: Suppressing photooxidation of conjugated polymers and their blends with fullerenes through nickel chelates. Energy Environ. Sci. 10, 2005–2016 (2017).Google Scholar
Razzell-Hollis, J., Wade, J., Chung Tsoi, W., Soon, Y., Durrant, J., and Kim, J-S.: Photochemical stability of high efficiency PTB7:PC70BM solar cell blends. J. Mater. Chem. A 2, 20189–20195 (2014).Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Havlicek et al. supplementary material

Havlicek et al. supplementary material 1

Download Havlicek et al. supplementary material(File)
File 3.3 MB