Enhanced lifetime of Organic Photovoltaic diodes achieved by blending with PMMA: Impact of morphology and Donor:Acceptor combination

Nieto-Díaz, Balder A.; Pearson, Christopher; Al-Busaidi, Zakiya; Bowen, Leon; Petty, Michael C.; Groves, Christopher

Abstract

In order to realise the potential of organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) to provide cheap, scalable access to renewable energy, it is necessary to improve their lifetime and cost of encapsulation. The aim of this work is to achieve these aims by blending the donor and acceptor with the commodity polymer, PMMA, to form a ternary blend device with enhanced lifetime. We find that ternary OPV devices prepared in this manner can have up to double the lifetime of the binary control devices to an extent that depends upon the PMMA morphology and the processing additives used. Further, we find that the initial performance of ternary OPVs may decrease (in the case of PTB7-based blends) or slightly increase (in the case of P3HT-based blends) when compared to their binary counterparts, which is hypothesised to be due to donor compatibility with the PMMA. These findings suggest that this approach can be employed in other OPV blend systems and give design rules to maximise the positive impact on device lifetime.

Citation

Nieto-Díaz, B. A., Pearson, C., Al-Busaidi, Z., Bowen, L., Petty, M. C., & Groves, C. (2021). Enhanced lifetime of Organic Photovoltaic diodes achieved by blending with PMMA: Impact of morphology and Donor:Acceptor combination. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 219, Article 110765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2020.110765

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 20, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Sep 7, 2020
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Deposit Date: Sep 1, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 7, 2021
• Journal: Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells
• Print ISSN: 0927-0248
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-3398
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 219
• Article Number: 110765
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2020.110765
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1263384