The role of spin in the degradation of organic photovoltaics

Ivan Ramirez (), Alberto Privitera, Safakath Karuthedath, Anna Jungbluth, Johannes Benduhn, Andreas Sperlich, Donato Spoltore, Koen Vandewal, Frédéric Laquai and Moritz Riede ()
Additional contact information
Ivan Ramirez: Heliatek GmbH
Alberto Privitera: University of Oxford
Safakath Karuthedath: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Anna Jungbluth: University of Oxford
Johannes Benduhn: Technische Universität Dresden
Andreas Sperlich: Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Am Hubland
Donato Spoltore: Technische Universität Dresden
Koen Vandewal: Hasselt University
Frédéric Laquai: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Moritz Riede: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Stability is now a critical factor in the commercialization of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Both extrinsic stability to oxygen and water and intrinsic stability to light and heat in inert conditions must be achieved. Triplet states are known to be problematic in both cases, leading to singlet oxygen production or fullerene dimerization. The latter is thought to proceed from unquenched singlet excitons that have undergone intersystem crossing (ISC). Instead, we show that in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells the photo-degradation of C60 via photo-oligomerization occurs primarily via back-hole transfer (BHT) from a charge-transfer state to a C60 excited triplet state. We demonstrate this to be the principal pathway from a combination of steady-state optoelectronic measurements, time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance, and temperature-dependent transient absorption spectroscopy on model systems. BHT is a much more serious concern than ISC because it cannot be mitigated by improved exciton quenching, obtained for example by a finer BHJ morphology. As BHT is not specific to fullerenes, our results suggest that the role of electron and hole back transfer in the degradation of BHJs should also be carefully considered when designing stable OPV devices.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20601-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20601-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20601-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().