Center for Relativistic Laser Science

2018 JKW Symposium

There has been intensive interest in Organic photovoltaic (OPV) due to various advantages such as processability, flexibility, and low price compared with silicon based solar cell. In spite of these merits, due to its organic origin, there is an obstacle that OPV should overcome: Stability. There are various factors that affect the stability of OPV: Heat, air, light, etc.¹ To reach commercialization level, it is crucial to understand the degradation phenomena at molecular level. There have been consistent efforts to elucidate the photo-oxidation of PTB7 which is one of the representative OPV components via Resonance Raman spectroscopy², and IR spectroscopy³ respectively. In this poster, the photo-oxidation of PTB7-Th whose structure is similar to that of PTB7 will be discussed via UV/Vis, IR, and Raman spectroscopies. Combined with calculation, photo-oxidation mechanism is suggested to explain the spectroscopic phenomena. We hope this research would be the clues to enhance the stability of OPV in future.

References:

1)  Mateker, William R., and Michael D. McGehee, Adv. Mater. 2017, 29, 1603940

2)  Razzell-Hollis, Joseph, et al, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2014, 2, 20189-20195

3)  Shah, Satvik, et al, Nanoscale, 2017, 9, 8665-8673