High throughput testing platform for organic Solar Cells

In this paper we present a high throughput testing setup for organic solar cells that is necessary for an efficient analysis of their behaviour. The setup comprises process parameter logging, automated measurement data acquisition and subsequent data management and analysis. Utilising this setup the reproducibility of solar cells and the effect of production parameter variations has been tested with a set of 360 solar cells based on the poly-3-hexylthiophene:1-(3-methoxycarbonyl)-propyl-1-1-phenyl-(6,6)C61 bulk heterojunction. Variations in power conversion efficiency between 1 and 3% were observed on varying production parameters hardly mentioned in literature. The conditions during the vacuum deposition of the aluminium cathode turned out to have a significant effect. The key solar cell parameter affecting the performance was the fill factor (FF). As such the work exemplifies the necessity for a combined approach to analyse the complex behaviour of organic solar cells. The developed high throughput testing setup provides a basis for an efficient testing of production parameter variations and materials and additionally opens the door for statistical analysis. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Kristian O. Sylvester-Hvid,et al.  Efficiency limiting factors of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells identified by electrical impedance spectroscopy , 2007 .

[2]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Charge recombination in conjugated polymer/fullerene blended films studied by transient absorption spectroscopy , 2003 .

[3]  Norbert Koch,et al.  Organic electronic devices and their functional interfaces. , 2007, Chemphyschem : a European journal of chemical physics and physical chemistry.

[4]  Uli Lemmer,et al.  Organic tandem solar cells comprising polymer and small-molecule subcells , 2006 .

[5]  Tomas Edvinsson,et al.  The monolithic multicell: a tool for testing material components in dye‐sensitized solar cells , 2007 .

[6]  Andreas W. Liehr,et al.  Datamining and analysis of the key parameters in organic solar cells , 2006, SPIE Photonics Europe.

[7]  Jenny Nelson.  Organic photovoltaic films , 2002 .

[8]  Gang Li,et al.  Accurate Measurement and Characterization of Organic Solar Cells , 2006 .

[9]  N. S. Sariciftci,et al.  A review of charge transport and recombination in polymer/fullerene organic solar cells , 2007 .

[10]  Jean-Michel Nunzi,et al.  Organic photovoltaic materials and devices , 2002 .

[11]  Jenny Nelson,et al.  Diffusion-limited recombination in polymer-fullerene blends and its influence on photocurrent collection , 2003 .

[12]  D. J. Christie,et al.  Control of reactive sputtering processes , 2005 .

[13]  Kazuhiro Saito,et al.  Investigation of optimum conditions for high-efficiency organic thin-film solar cells based on polymer blends , 2006 .

[14]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Organic photovoltaics: technology and market , 2004 .

[15]  Yang Yang,et al.  High-efficiency solution processable polymer photovoltaic cells by self-organization of polymer blends , 2005 .

[16]  C. H. Seaman,et al.  Calibration of solar cells by the reference cell method—The spectral mismatch problem , 1982 .

[17]  Brian A. Gregg,et al.  Organic and nano-structured composite photovoltaics: An overview , 2005 .

[18]  Michael Niggemann,et al.  Organic solar cells using inverted layer sequence , 2005 .

[19]  Frederik C. Krebs,et al.  Significant Improvement of Polymer Solar Cell Stability , 2005 .

[20]  Valentin D. Mihailetchi,et al.  Charge Transport and Photocurrent Generation in Poly(3‐hexylthiophene): Methanofullerene Bulk‐Heterojunction Solar Cells , 2006 .

[21]  N. S. Sariciftci,et al.  Conjugated polymer-based organic solar cells. , 2007, Chemical reviews.

[22]  Gang Li,et al.  Investigation of annealing effects and film thickness dependence of polymer solar cells based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) , 2005 .

[23]  Kristian O. Sylvester-Hvid,et al.  Analyzing poly(3-hexyl-thiophene):1-(3-methoxy-carbonyl)propyl-1-phenyl-(6,6)C61 bulk-heterojunction solar cells by UV-visible spectroscopy and optical simulations , 2007 .

[24]  Peter van de Weijer,et al.  Polymer light-emitting diodes: from materials to devices , 1997, Optics & Photonics.

[25]  Helmut Neugebauer,et al.  Flexible, long-lived, large-area, organic solar cells , 2007 .

[26]  Martin Pfeiffer,et al.  Organic p-i-n solar cells , 2004 .

[27]  C. Brabec,et al.  Organic photovoltaic devices produced from conjugated polymer/methanofullerene bulk heterojunctions , 2001 .

[28]  Andreas Gombert,et al.  ITO-free wrap through organic solar cells—A module concept for cost-efficient reel-to-reel production , 2007 .

[29]  Xiong Gong,et al.  Thermally Stable, Efficient Polymer Solar Cells with Nanoscale Control of the Interpenetrating Network Morphology , 2005 .

[30]  V. Mihailetchi,et al.  Space-charge limited photocurrent. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[31]  Alan J. Heeger,et al.  Polymer light-emitting diodes with polyethylene dioxythiophene–polystyrene sulfonate as the transparent anode , 1997 .