TY  - JOUR
A1  - Cardinaletti, Ilaria
A1  - Kesters, Jurgen
A1  - Bertho, Sabine
A1  - Conings, Bert
A1  - Piersimoni, Fortunato
A1  - Lutsen, Laurence
A1  - Nesladek, Milos
A1  - Van Mele, Bruno
A1  - Van Assche, Guy
A1  - Vandewal, Koen
A1  - Salleo, Alberto
A1  - Vanderzande, Dirk
A1  - Maes, Wouter
A1  - Manca, Jean V.
T1  - Toward bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells with thermally stable active layer morphology
JF  - Journal of photonics for energy
N2  - When state-of-the-art bulk heterojunction organic solar cells with ideal morphology are exposed to prolonged storage or operation at elevated temperatures, a thermally induced disruption of the active layer blend can occur, in the form of a separation of donor and acceptor domains, leading to diminished photovoltaic performance. Toward the long-term use of organic solar cells in real-life conditions, an important challenge is, therefore, the development of devices with a thermally stable active layer morphology. Several routes are being explored, ranging from the use of high glass transition temperature, cross-linkable and/or side-chain functionalized donor and acceptor materials, to light-induced dimerization of the fullerene acceptor. A better fundamental understanding of the nature and underlying mechanisms of the phase separation and stabilization effects has been obtained through a variety of analytical, thermal analysis, and electro-optical techniques. Accelerated aging systems have been used to study the degradation kinetics of bulk heterojunction solar cells in situ at various temperatures to obtain aging models predicting solar cell lifetime. The following contribution gives an overview of the current insights regarding the intrinsic thermally induced aging effects and the proposed solutions, illustrated by examples of our own research groups. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
KW  - organic photovoltaics
KW  - bulk heterojunction
KW  - thermal stability
KW  - phase separation
KW  - lifetime
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JPE.4.040997
SN  - 1947-7988
VL  - 4
PB  - SPIE
CY  - Bellingham
ER  -