Effects of Adhesion and Stretching on Failure Mechanisms and Optical Properties of Organic Solar Cells

This paper presents the results of a study of the adhesion and optical properties of layered structures that are relevant to stretchable organic solar cells. A combination of modeling and experiments is used to investigate the effects of adhesion and stretching on failure mechanisms and optical properties. The adhesion between the possible bi-layers is determined by incorporating force microscopy measurements of pull-off forces into adhesion models. The failure mechanisms associated with the tensile stretching of the structures are then investigated using a combination of in-situ/ex-situ microscopy observations and analytical/computational models. The resulting changes in optical properties are elucidated before discussing their implications for the design of stretchable organic solar cells