Non-fullerene acceptor photostability and its impact on organic solar cell lifetime

The development of non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) has facilitated the realization of efficient organic solar cells (OSCs) with minimal burn-in losses and excellent long-term stability. However, the role of NFA molecular structures on device stability remains unclear, limiting commercialization of NFA-based OSCs. Herein, the photostability of 10 OSC devices, fabricated with various NFAs (O-IDTBR, EH-IDTBR, ITIC, and ITIC-M) blended with donor polymers (PTB7-Th, PffBT4T-2OD, and PBDB-T), is investigated. O-IDTBR and EH-IDTBR form highly stable devices with all three polymers, whereas ITIC and ITIC-M devices suffer from burn-in losses and long-term degradation. Conformational instability is found to be responsible for the poor photostability of ITIC and ITIC-M, resulting in poor device stability. Twisting and potential breakage of the chemical bond that links the end group to the main backbone of ITIC and ITIC-M molecules causes undesirable conformational changes. Potential strategies to overcome such detrimental photo-induced conformational changes in NFAs are proposed

On the typology and the worship status of sacred trees with a special reference to the Middle East

This article contains the reasons for the establishment of sacred trees in Israel based on a field study. It includes 97 interviews with Muslim and Druze informants. While Muslims (Arabs and Bedouins) consider sacred trees especially as an abode of righteous figures' (Wellis') souls or as having a connection to their graves, the Druze relate sacred trees especially to the events or deeds in the lives of prophets and religious leaders. A literary review shows the existence of 24 known reasons for the establishment of sacred trees worldwide, 11 of which are known in Israel one of these is reported here for the first time. We found different trends in monotheistic and polytheistic religions concerning their current worship of sacred trees

The supernatural characters and powers of sacred trees in the Holy Land

This article surveys the beliefs concerning the supernatural characteristics and powers of sacred trees in Israel; it is based on a field study as well as a survey of the literature and includes 118 interviews with Muslims and Druze. Both the Muslims and Druze in this study attribute supernatural dimensions to sacred trees which are directly related to ancient, deep-rooted pagan traditions. The Muslims attribute similar divine powers to sacred trees as they do to the graves of their saints; the graves and the trees are both considered to be the abode of the soul of a saint which is the source of their miraculous powers. Any violation of a sacred tree would be strictly punished while leaving the opportunity for atonement and forgiveness. The Druze, who believe in the transmigration of souls, have similar traditions concerning sacred trees but with a different religious background. In polytheistic religions the sacred grove/forest is a centre of the community's official worship; any violation of the trees is regarded as a threat to the well being of the community. Punishments may thus be collective. In the monotheistic world (including Christianity, Islam and Druze) the pagan worship of trees was converted into the worship/adoration of saints/prophets; it is not a part of the official religion but rather a personal act and the punishments are exerted only on the violating individual

Consensus statement for stability assessment and reporting for perovskite photovoltaics based on ISOS procedures

Funder: 2017 SGR 329 Severo Ochoa program from Spanish MINECO (Grant No. SEV-2017-0706)Funder: This article is based upon work from COST Action StableNextSol MP1307 supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology). M. V. K., E. A. K., V. B., and A. Osherov thank the financial support of the United States – Israel Binational Science Foundation (grant no. 2015757). E. A. K., A. A., and I. V.-F. acknowledge a partial support from the SNaPSHoTs project in the framework of the German-Israeli bilateral R&D cooperation in the field of applied nanotechnology. M. S. L. thanks the financial support of NSF (ECCS, award #1610833). S. C., M. Manceau and M. Matheron thank the financial support of European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 763989 (APOLO project). F. De R. and T. M. W. would like to acknowledge the support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre (EP/N020863/1) and express their gratitude to the Welsh Government for their support of the Ser Solar programme. P. A. T. acknowledges financial support from Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-73-30020). J.K. acknowledges the support by the Solar Photovoltaic Academic Research Consortium II (SPARC II) project, gratefully funded by WEFO. M.K.N. acknowledges financial support from Innosuisse project 25590.1 PFNM-NM, Solaronix, Aubonne, Switzerland. C.-Q. M. would like to acknowledge The Bureau of International Cooperation of Chinese Academy of Sciences for the support of ISOS11 and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China for the financial support (No 2016YFA0200700). N.G.P. acknowledges financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grants funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT Future Planning (MSIP) of Korea under contracts NRF-2012M3A6A7054861 and NRF-2014M3A6A7060583 (Global Frontier R&D Program on Center for Multiscale Energy System). CSIRO’s contribution to this work was conducted with funding support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) through its Advancing Renewables Program. A. F. N gratefully acknowledges support from FAPESP (Grant 2017/11986-5) and Shell and the strategic importance of the support given by ANP (Brazil’s National Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency) through the R&D levy regulation. Y.-L.L. and Q.B. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation under award #1824674. S.D.S. acknowledges the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (HYPERION, grant agreement No. 756962), and the Royal Society and Tata Group (UF150033). The work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under contract DE-AC36-08GO28308 with Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, the manager and operator of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The authors (J.J.B, J.M.L., M.O.R, K.Z.) acknowledge support from the De-risking halide perovskite solar cells program of the National Center for Photovoltaics, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Solar Energy Technology Office. The views expressed in the article do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. H.J.S. acknowledges the support of EPSRC UK, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. V.T. and M. Madsen acknowledges ‘Villum Foundation’ for funding of the project CompliantPV, under project number 13365. M. Madsen acknowledges Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond, DFF FTP for funding of the project React-PV, No. 8022-00389B. M.G. and S.M.Z. thank the King Abdulaziz City for Science and technology (KACST) for financial support. S.V. acknowledges TKI-UE/Ministry of Economic Affairs for financial support of the TKI-UE toeslag project POP-ART (No. 1621103). M.L.C. and H.X. acknowledges the support from Spanish MINECO for the grant GraPErOs (ENE2016-79282-C5-2-R), the OrgEnergy Excellence Network CTQ2016-81911- REDT, the Agència de Gestiód'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) for the support to the consolidated Catalonia research group 2017 SGR 329 and the Xarxa de Referència en Materials Avançats per a l'Energia (Xarmae). ICN2 is supported by the Severo Ochoa program from Spanish MINECO (Grant No. SEV-2017-0706) and is funded by the CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya.Abstract: Improving the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells is critical to the deployment of this technology. Despite the great emphasis laid on stability-related investigations, publications lack consistency in experimental procedures and parameters reported. It is therefore challenging to reproduce and compare results and thereby develop a deep understanding of degradation mechanisms. Here, we report a consensus between researchers in the field on procedures for testing perovskite solar cell stability, which are based on the International Summit on Organic Photovoltaic Stability (ISOS) protocols. We propose additional procedures to account for properties specific to PSCs such as ion redistribution under electric fields, reversible degradation and to distinguish ambient-induced degradation from other stress factors. These protocols are not intended as a replacement of the existing qualification standards, but rather they aim to unify the stability assessment and to understand failure modes. Finally, we identify key procedural information which we suggest reporting in publications to improve reproducibility and enable large data set analysis

Helium permeation as a fast quality indicator for barrier properties of solar cell encapsulates

The advent of flexible electronic devices and flexible thin-film photovoltaic modules increases the need for transparent and flexible high-barrier films. Conventional methods for measuring the barrier properties of such films are costly and time consuming. In our work, we present a method where we correlate water vapor and helium transmission rate measurements on strained barrier films with thin-film solar module performance. We show that the detected properties correlate well with the performance of a CIGS mini module exposed to damp-heat environment. The critical strain limit for a substantial decrease in barrier properties was identified for an ETFE-based barrier film incorporating an inorganic barrier layer. It was found that the detection of the helium transmission rate provides a fast and reliable way to identify damage to barrier films and is therefore suitable as means for quality control or incoming goods inspection

Influence of Polymer Properties on Potential Induced Degradation of PV-Modules

Solar Cells that are prone to Potential Induced Degradation (PID) have been laminated as one-cell mini modules with various types of back sheet and encapsulation materials. Additionally, water soaking and water permeation properties of the encapsulation and back sheet materials have been tested. It was found that modules containing materials with low barrier and high soaking properties lead to a strong loss in shunt resistance after a short period of time. At the same time, materials with high barrier and low soaking properties protect the cells against electrical degradation under high voltage potentials. Surprisingly, modules containing the TPO-encapsulant showed an increase of shunt resistance during during PID test

Technische Anwendung der Regelung chaotischer Systeme und der Zeitreihenanalyse. Teilvorhaben: Stabilisierung von frequenzverdoppelten Nd-YAG-Lasern mit Regelungsverfahren der nichtlinearen Dynamik Abschlussbericht

SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F01B492+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany)DEGerman