Stability study of thermal cycling on organic solar cells

We present a side-by-side comparison of the stability of three different types of benchmark solution-processed organic solar cells (OSCs), subject to thermal cycling stress conditions. We study the in situ performance during 5 complete thermal cycles between −100 and 80 °C and find that all the device types investigated exhibit superior stability, albeit with a distinct temperature dependence of device efficiency. After applying a much harsher condition of 50 thermal cycles, we further affirm the robustness of the OSC against thermal cycling stress. Our results suggest that OSCs could be a promising candidate for applications with large variations and rapid change in the operating temperature such as outer space applications. Also, a substantial difference in the efficiency drops from high to low temperature for different systems is observed. It suggests that maintaining optimum performance with minimal variations with operating temperature is a key challenge to be addressed for such photovoltaic applications.