Abstract
We report a cooperative study conducted between different laboratories to investigate organic solar cell degradation with respect to P3HT material properties and different solar cell architectures. Various batches of P3HT were collected from different suppliers reflecting commercial availability as well as properties variability. Among the materials properties explicitly considered were the molar mass, dispersity, regio-regularity, impurities by trace metals and intrinsic doping evaluated from radical concentrations. Each of the participating laboratories contributing test devices applied their own layer stack, i.e. their own device architecture and layout. This variation was appreciated as another parameter for evaluation. Even though a large amount of devices failed due to extrinsic degradation effects, indeed, some materials properties were found to be more important than others for obtaining long lifetimes and high stability of P3HT-based polymer solar cells.
•P3HT:PCBM solar cells made from commercially available P3HTs were aged under three different ISOS protocols.•Solar cells were built by five different labs resulting in 5 different architectures.•The P3HT batches were studied for their properties like impurities, molar mass, dispersity, etc.•All P3HTs performed similar in regard to stability we concluded that commercially available P3HTs offer viable properties.•Layer stack and processor experience with P3HT used had a larger impact on stability than polymer properties.