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. 130 138-143Subject Categories
Polymer Chemistry
Areas of Advance
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Energy
Materials Science
DOI
10.1016/j.solmat.2014.06.041