Understanding Degradation Pathways in Organic Photovoltaics (Poster)

Organic Photovoltaics (OPVs) recently attained power conversion efficiencies that are of interest for commercial production. Consequently, one of the most important unsolved issues facing a new industry is understanding what governs lifetime in organic devices and discovering solutions to mitigate degradation mechanisms. Historically, the active organic components are considered vulnerable tophoto-oxidation and represent the primary degradation channel. However, we present several (shelf life and light soaking) studies pointing the relative stability of the active layers and instabilities in commonly used electrode materials. We show that engineering of the hole/electron layer at the electrode can lead to environmentally stable devices even without encapsulation.