Project Details
Projekt
Nanomorphological characterisation, homogeneity and stability of printed solar cells
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Eva M. Herzig
Subject Area
Experimental Condensed Matter Physics
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 461909888
This project is part of the collaborative research effort POPULAR with the goal to enable reliable high performance, large scale, organic photovoltaic processing by understanding the fundamental photophysical and nanostructural processes involved in industrially fabricated devices.In our subproject we want to contribute to this overall goal by revealing the possibilities and limitations we have in deliberately choosing a particular nanostructure and -morphology (ns&m) by carefully controlling the deposition process and systematically exploring postprocessing. Results from blade coating are well transferable to gravure printing. Additionally, many decisive processing parameters can be easily varied in a large parameter space. Hence, we carry out our systematic studies via blade coating with various processing parameters like solvents, composition, temperature, additives, film thickness etc. We will then use postprocessing to further manipulate the ns&m. Recording time-resolved spectroscopic data of the structure formation process during blade coating gives us access to processing signatures that contain information on aggregation and phase separation behavior as a function of processing. Relevant final films are structurally characterized using x-ray scattering. From the easily accessible processing signatures, in combination with detailed structural studies we can fundamentally understand the experimentally decisive structure formation mechanisms. We aim to gain enough fundamental understanding to be able to suggest processing parameters for new materials solely by recording processing signatures. Furthermore, we will examine the effect of microstructural inhomogeneities on the mm-scale on the underlying ns&m and use the previously gained understanding to counteract detrimental structure formation effects. In combination with the other projects we will be able to contribute to a holistic understanding of structure—function relationships in printed organic photovoltaics.
DFG Programme
Research Units
