Graduate student Awwad Alotaibi has defended his dissertation titled “Accurate measurement of charge generation at interfaces of organic solar cell devices printed from non-halogenated solvents”. For this work he has been awarded his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. Congratulations Awwad!
In collaboration with Neher group et al., organic solar cell work, entitled “On the Interplay between CT and Singlet Exciton Emission in Organic Solar Cells with Small Driving Force and Its Impact on Voltage Loss”, has been published in Advanced Energy Materials.
Awwad Alotaibi, Tamanna Khan, Obaid Alqahtani, and Brian Collins all presented at the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii. Brian has helped as an organizer of the “Symposium SB01—Organic Electronics—Multimodal Characterization and Computation-Driven Material Design and Performance”, also has chaired a few sessions in that symposium. Additionally, Brian presented an oral presentation titled: “Revealing the Impact of Interfacial Structure on Charge Generation and Recombination in Organic Photovoltaics”. Awwad’s presentation is titled: “Accurate Measurements of Charge Generation in Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells with Overpulse TDCF Charge Extraction”. Tamanna presented here work, which is titled “Controlling Ionic Transport in Conducting Polymers via Chemical Gating”. Obaid’s oral presentation is titled: “Evidence That Sharp Donor-Acceptor Interfaces Suppress Recombination, Allowing for Thick Organic Photovoltaics”. Additionally, Obaid presented a poster, titled as: “Multimodal Characterization of Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells Based to Assess the Effectiveness of Solvent Plasticizers”.
Obaid’s work on structure-property relationships in polymer:non-fullerene (NFA) organic solar cells (OSCs) has been published at Small. This work examines the effectiveness of a solvent additive that is commonly used to optimize ink-printed NFA OSCs. The findings show that performance and morphology of NFA OSCs are extremely sensitive to residuals of additive due to high sensitivity of NFA molecules to over-crystallization. The main takeaway of this study is that extreme precision is required when printing NFA OSCs with solvent additives. Alternatively, additive-free methods might be necessarily for successful large-scale printing of NFA OSCs. This work was conducted in collaboration with colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing.
Graduate student Tamanna Khan has graduated with her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering. Her dissertation is titled “CONTROLLING ION TRANSPORT PATHWAYS IN POLYMER MIXED ION/ELECTRON CONDUCTING DEVICES”
Congratulations Tamanna!
Emma Speight, undergraduate senior, presented her thesis project at the WSU Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (SURCA). Her poster title was “Dynamics of Ordering of Conductive Polymer Films Printed Under Controlled Airflow”. Emma won one of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Gray Awards, the second-highest award at SURCA.
Congratulations Emma!
Victor and Devin presented at the 2022 APS Meeting in Chicago. Victor presented at session D02: Ultrafast XUV/Soft X-ray Spectroscopy. His talk is entitled “Combining soft X-ray spectroscopy and reflectivity with DFT for optical models of polarized RSoXS to reveal molecular alignment in nanostructures”. Devin presented at session M18: Polymer Structure Formation and Dynamics in Solution. His presentation was entitled “Label-free characterization of aqueous micelle nanostructure and dynamics via in-situ RSoXS”.
Graduate student Devin Grabner has successfully defended his master’s degree in Physics. His project titled “Label-Free Characterization of aPS50 Nanostructure, Chemistry, and Dynamics via In-Situ Resonant Soft X-Ray Scattering (RSoXS)” revealed the chemical substructure and dynamics of self-assembled polymer nanocarriers being developed for hydrocarbon sequestration and oil spill remediation. This was made possible through his application of a novel nanoprobe technique that is sensitive to unique chemical bonds within the structure. This work was in collaboration with chemist Dr. Phillip Picket while working at the University of Southern Mississippi (now at NIST).
Devin plans to publish this work and will continue his project in the group toward his PhD. Congratulations!
Tamanna presented at talk entitled “Gating Dual Channel Ionic Transport in Conducting Polymers via Hydrophobicity” at the Symposium SB08, which focuses on Bioelectronics: Materials and Interfaces. The 2021 MRS Fall meeting took place in person between Nov. 29-Dec. 2, 2021 in Boston, MA.
Obaid’s work on structure-property relationships in polymer:fullerene organic solar cells (OSCs) has been published at ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. This work explains the morphological origins of suppressed charge recombination in photovoltaic active layers. The findings show that large well-ordered conduits with sharp interfaces between donor-acceptor domains are important for keeping opposite charges separated and percolation pathways clear. That result in enhanced charge collection even in active layers with film thickness that is suitable for industrial production methods, such as roll-to-roll printing. The work involved a large collaboration with groups across the globe including University of Potsdam (Germany), Swansea University (U.K.), South China University of Technology (China) as well as local collaborations.