Improving the Stability of Organic Solar Cells: From Materials to Devices

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are a promising emerging photovoltaic technology for solar energy conversion. Recently, the power conversion efficiencies of the OSCs have been improved to get closer to their Schottky–Queisser limit. However, the operational stability of OSCs remains as a major challenge ahead of their deployment for practical applications. The main causes of OSC instability stem from the poor intrinsic stability of materials, metastable morphology of the multicomponent active layer, unstable interfaces, and sensitivity to moisture and oxygen. To address these issues, it is necessary to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the OSC fundamentals and develop an integrated solution to overcome them. Herein, the state-of-art strategies used to improve the stability of OSCs from the aspects of material design, device processing, and encapsulation techniques, in hope of delivering comprehensive and rational solutions, are summarized. In the end, the prospects toward the future development of efficient and stable OSCs are provided. © 2023 Wiley-VCH GmbH.