Customised photo-rig for the simultaneous measurement of multiple photobleaching photovoltaic materials
Emily Speller  1@  , Zhe Li  1@  , Francesca De Rossi  1@  , Michail Beliatis  2@  , Suren Gevorgyan  2@  , Trystan Watson  1@  , Frederik Krebs  2@  , Wing Chung Tsoi  1@  
1 : swansea university
2 : Technical University of Denmark  (DTU)

The stability of solution processed organic and perovskite photovoltaics (PV) is now widely recognised as a critical challenge toward their commercialisation, with device degradation under light and oxygen of key consideration. Photobleaching is a commonly used technique for screening materials for their photochemical stability. Here we demonstrate a novel approach for the fast initial screening of the photochemical stability of PV materials using a customised photo-rig. The films under test are degraded under different lighting conditions under dry air conditions and the photobleaching process of the samples is monitored by a program-controlled high-resolution camera. Photobleaching rates are calculated by analysing the RGB elements as a function of time. Our preliminary results of the photochemical stability studies show that Poly({4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl}{3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl}) (PBT7) and poly-(3-(2-methylhexyloxycarbonyl)dithiophene) (P3MHOCT) are the least stable among the nine organic PV polymers studied. In comparison to other optical spectroscopy studies such as UV-Vis spectroscopy, this technique is advantageous as an easy method for the fast initial screening of the photochemical stability of multiple PV materials simultaneously.


Online user: 1