Spectroscopic Investigation of Active Layer Degradation in Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

摘要

To achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a result of generating electricity by the burning of fossil fuels, inexpensive, renewable, low-carbon footprint methods are needed. Of the many possibilities the only resource with consistent delivery of energy with the scale necessary to provide a significant positive impact is the 150,000 terawatt of energy the sun provides to the earth on a continuous basis. Among the breadth of possible routes being pursued to convert this solar flux into electricity organic photovoltaics (OPV) are very promising in terms of cost, flexibility, mechanical robustness and carbon-footprint. OPVs represent a broad area of opportunity due to the diversity of possible active layer components and the wide variety of large-area, high-throughput production methods available. However, a number of significant challenges still remain for OPV technologies to overcome before they can be employed at a large scale for delivering energy to the grid. These challenges are mainly related to low device efficiencies and limited performance life.