Probing the carrier traps in organic solar cells

Project level: PhD, Masters, Honours, Summer

Organic solar cells have attracted significant commercial interest because of their desirable properties. These solar cells can be made easily, possibly cheaply, are light weight and can be made onto flexible substrates. Already, organic solar cells have been appearing in ‘niche’ consumer electronic products (e.g. Energy Sun Bags, so that you can charge up your iPod while on the go).

My research focuses on developing high performance organic solar cells and understanding how material properties (on the fundamental scale) affects the device performance. (Example of this approach can be found at Adv. Mater.23, 766 (2011)). One factor in determining the organic solar cells performance is the presence of trap states.

The project will be carried out at the Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE), where we are developing new materials for the next generation of organic solar cells. During the course of the project, the student will build upon the existing transient electrical spectroscopy setup, and then use it to analyse the carrier traps in organic semiconductors. This will lead to new insights into fundamental processes at the molecular level and carrier transport. This project is suited to students with programming experience (as you will be using LABVIEW), and interest in physics, chemistry and/or material science.