Current status of outdoor lifetime testing of organic photovoltaics
Abstract
Performance degradation is one of the key obstacles limiting the commercial application of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. The assessment of OPV stability and lifetime are usually based on simulated degradation experiments conducted under indoor conditions, whereas photovoltaic devices experience different environmental conditions under outdoor operation. Besides the intrinsic degradation of OPV devices due to the evolution of optoelectronic and morphological structure during long‐term operation, outdoor environmental changes can impose extra stresses and accelerate the degradation of OPV modules. Although outdoor studies on long‐term OPV stability are restricted by the long data collection times, they provide direct information on OPV stability under mixed degradation stresses and are therefore invaluable from the point of view of both research and practical application. Here, an overview of the current status of outdoor lifetime studies of OPVs is provided. After a summary of device lifetime extrapolated from indoor studies, outdoor lifetime testing platforms are introduced and the operational lifetime of various OPV devices are reviewed. The influence of climate and weather parameters on device performance and burn‐in phenomena observed during the degradation of OPVs is then discussed. Finally, an outlook and directions for future research in this field are suggested.
Citation
Zhang , Y , Samuel , I D W , Wang , T & Lidzey , D G 2018 , ' Current status of outdoor lifetime testing of organic photovoltaics ' , Advanced Science , vol. 5 , no. 8 , 1800434 . https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201800434
Publication
Advanced Science
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2198-3844Type
Journal item
Rights
© 2018 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. 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
Description
I.D.W.S acknowledges support from the EPSRC (grant EP/L012294/1) and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.Collections
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