Lee, H.K.H., Stewart, K., Hughes, D. et al. (9 more authors) (2022) Proton radiation hardness of organic photovoltaics : an in‐depth study. Solar RRL, 6 (6). 2101037. ISSN 2367-198X
Abstract
Recent developments of solution-processed bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells have demonstrated power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) as high as 18% for single-junction devices. Such a high PCE in addition to its desirable lightweight property and high mechanical flexibility can realize high specific power and small stowed volume, which are key considerations when choosing PV for space missions. To take one important step forward, their resilience to ionizing radiation should be well studied. Herein, the effect of proton irradiation at various fluences on the performance of benchmark OPV cells is explored under AM0 illumination. The remaining device performance is found to decrease with increasing proton fluence, which correlates to changes in electrical and chemical properties of the active layer. By redissolving the devices, the solubility of the active layer is found to decrease with increasing proton fluence, suggesting that the active materials are likely cross-linked. Additionally, Raman studies reveal conformational changes of the polymer leading to a higher degree of energetic disorder. Despite a drop in performance, the retaining percentage of the performance is indeed higher than the current market-dominating space PV technology—III–V semiconductor-based PV, demonstrating a high potential of the OPV cell as a candidate for space applications.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Authors. Solar RRL published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 04 Mar 2022 14:05 |
Last Modified: | 03 Feb 2023 16:20 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/solr.202101037 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:184407 |