Effect of ambient temperature on the efficiency of the PCPDTBT: PC71BM BHJ solar cells

Abstract

In this research article, the influence of environment temperature on the performance of the organic bulk heterojunction organic solar cells has been investigated. We describe the effect of ambient temperature on the efficiency of poly-[2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta-[2,1-b;3,4-b′]dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (PCPDTBT) and [6, 6]-phenylC71-butyric-acid-methyl-ester (PC71BM)-based bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells. The current–voltage characteristics of the ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PCPDTBT:PC71BM/Al solar cells are recorded in the temperature range of 25–60 °C under 100 mW/cm2 solar irradiation. The short-circuit current (J sc) of the solar cells increased from 4.28 to 9.23 mAcm−2 when the temperature elevated from 25 to 55 °C. However, the open-circuit voltage (V oc) and fill factor (FF) of the cells almost remained unchanged over the whole investigated temperature range. The values of V oc and FF are found to be 0.58 ± 01 and 0.60 ± 0.12 V, respectively. The results clearly indicate that the maximum efficiency of the ITO/PEDOT:PSS/PCPDTBT:PC71BM/Al solar cells can be achieved in the range of 52–58 °C.