Stability study of quinoxaline and pyrido pyrazine based co-polymers for solar cell applications
Journal article, 2014

We present two co-polymer families; one based on a thiophene-quinoxaline unit and one on a thiophene-pyrido pyrazine unit. Co-polymerization of these monomers with thiophene-hexylthiophene was performed to create polymers with an optical absorption that fully covers the visible part of the solar spectrum with the aim to enhance the solar cell performances of these polymers. We have also studied how increasing the fraction of thiophene-hexylthiophene affects the photo-oxidative stability of these polymers. Thiophene-pyrido pyrazine solar cells displayed increased device efficiency upon addition of the thiophene-hexylthiophene and, in addition, the stability is retained upon inclusion of these units. In contrast, we found that for the thiophene-quinoxaline based co-polymer, both device efficiency and stability decreased with increasing thiophene-hexylthiophene fraction. Moreover, our results indicate that the photo-oxidative stability of the thiophene-quinoxaline co-polymer is independent of the polymer molecular weight as well as of the film thickness.

Conjugated polymers

Photo-oxidative stability

UV-vis spectroscopy

Polymer solar cells

Author

Patrik Henriksson

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Camilla Lindqvist

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Bedasa Abdisa

Linköping University

Addis Ababa University

Ergang Wang

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Zandra George

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Renee Kroon

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Christian Müller

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

T. Yohannes

Addis Ababa University

Olle Inganäs

Linköping University

Mats Andersson

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

0927-0248 (ISSN)

Vol. 130 138-143

Subject Categories

Polymer Chemistry

Areas of Advance

Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Energy

Materials Science

DOI

10.1016/j.solmat.2014.06.041

More information

Latest update

2/28/2018