Development of Scalable and Low-Cost Polymer Solar Cell Test Platform

The main advantage of organic or polymer solar cells is their compatibility with conventional printing and coating techniques, making them highly cost-effective and suitable for large scale manufacturing. This work describes a simple, scalable, low-cost platform designed to test polymer solar cell devices. Custom built instrumentation and software were developed to analyze the current-voltage characteristics and quantum efficiency (QE) of the solar cells. The test set-up is modular and can be adapted to test solar cells under varying atmospheres (inert and ambient). The solar energy source comprises of an Oriel 91160 300W class C solar simulator with air mass (AM) 1.5G filter for spectral shaping and solar intensity variation between 1 and 3 suns. Custom software developed using LABVIEW allows for testing to be carried out at high speeds reproducibly with minimal operator intervention. Software-controlled timer functionality allows programmable testing of solar cells over durations ranging from seconds to days, allowing for the evaluation of solar cell operational lifetimes. The facile design of the test set-up presented here provides an opportunity for different laboratories to set-up similar systems and tweak them for performing a host of photovoltaic measurements.