Temperature and irradiance effect on the photovoltaic parameters of a fullerene/conjugated-polymer solar cell

E. A. Katz, D. Faiman, Y. Cohen, F. Padinger, C. Brabec, N. S. Sariciftci

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bulk donor-acceptor heterojunctions between conjugated polymers and fullerene derivatives have been utilized successfully for photovoltaic devices showing monochromatic efficiencies above 1%. The present paper reports the temperature and irradiance dependencies of full-spectrum photovoltaic parameters for such devices. The measurements were performed under real sun conditions and under a solar simulator. The sun provided a light source stable in intensity to within ±1% and closely approximating a true AM1.5 spectrum, whereas the simulator enabled the light intensity to be varied in the range 80-600 W m-2. The most interesting feature that was observed for these devices is that above a cell temperature of 20 °C the positive temperature coefficient observed for the short-circuit current exceeds in magnitude the negative temperature coefficient that was found for the open-circuit voltage. This means that, unlike the situation for conventional PV devices, these cells actually exhibit an increase in efficiency with increasing temperature (reaching a value of 0.63% at 40 °C). We suggest that the observed behavior originates from the temperature dependence of the conductivity of the conjugated polymers-fullerene composite. This hypothesis is confirmed by the irradiance-resolved measurements performed at different cell temperatures. We observe a linear increase in the short-circuit current with light intensity over the whole ranges of irradiances and temperatures but maximum temperature influence is observed at highest light intensity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)117-124
Number of pages8
JournalProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume4108
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2001

Keywords

  • Bulk heterojunctions
  • Conjugated polymers
  • Fullerenes
  • Solar cells

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Temperature and irradiance effect on the photovoltaic parameters of a fullerene/conjugated-polymer solar cell'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this