- Title
- Enhanced regeneration of degraded polymer solar cells by thermal annealing
- Creator
- Kumar, Pankaj; Bilen, Chhinder; Feron, Krishna; Zhou, Xiaojing; Belcher, Warwick J.; Dastoor, Paul C.
- Relation
- Australian Government, through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency
- Relation
- Applied Physics Letters Vol. 104, Issue 19
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4878408
- Publisher
- American Institute of Physics
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2014
- Description
- The degradation and thermal regeneration of poly(3-hexylethiophene) (P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) and P3HT:indene-C60 bisadduct (ICBA) polymer solar cells, with Ca/Al and Ca/Ag cathodes and indium tin oxide/poly(ethylene-dioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate anode have been investigated. Degradation occurs via a combination of three primary pathways: (1) cathodic oxidation, (2) active layer phase segregation, and (3) anodic diffusion. Fully degraded devices were subjected to thermal annealing under inert atmosphere. Degraded solar cells possessing Ca/Ag electrodes were observed to regenerate their performance, whereas solar cells having Ca/Al electrodes exhibited no significant regeneration of device characteristics after thermal annealing. Moreover, the solar cells with a P3HT:ICBA active layer exhibited enhanced regeneration compared to P3HT:PCBM active layer devices as a result of reduced changes to the active layer morphology. Devices combining a Ca/Ag cathode and P3HT:ICBA active layer demonstrated ∼50% performance restoration over several degradation/regeneration cycles.
- Subject
- solar cells; active layer; cathodes; oxidation; phase segregation
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1061753
- Identifier
- uon:17005
- Identifier
- ISSN:0003-6951
- Rights
- © American Institute of Physics
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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