The impact of water vapor transmission rate on the lifetime of flexible polymer solar cells

Abstract

In this paper we perform accelerated lifetime testing on high efficiency flexible poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) solar cells encapsulated with food package quality barrier films with a water vapor transmission rate of 0.2 g/(m2 day) at 65 °C/85% relative humidity. We show that lifetimes exceeding 1250 h, even at high temperature/high humidity conditions, may be reached, proving that organic solar cells are significantly less sensitive against the environmental effects of water and oxygen than previously expected.