The effect of barrier performance on the lifetime of small-molecule organic solar cells

In this work, we use different encapsulations to protect vacuum-evaporated small molecule organic solar cells with a simple p-i-i-stack for lifetime studies. Our devices use ZnPc and C60 as active materials. Lifetimes (T50) in a range from 300 h for un-encapsulated devices to 4000 h for glass-encapsulated have been observed. We use a model to distinguish between the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of the barrier and an additional WVTR of the aluminum top electrode. For all observed devices a loss of 50% of initial efficiency is observed when 10 mg m −2 water entered the device. The losses are related to a reduction of short circuit current density only, whereas open circuit voltage and fill factor remains unaffected. We relate this to an interaction of the water molecules with C60. [Display omitted] ► We use a serial-resistance-analogy model to describe the encapsulation. ► A 100 nm thick aluminium layer is treated as second water barrier. ► A WVTR of 8 × 10 − 4 g m d − 1 for the aluminium layer is found. ► Only the water in the organic layers is enough to describe the ageing process. ► An amount of 10 mg m −2 water in the organics is needed to deteriorate the PCE to 50%.