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MSE-486: Organic electronic materials

This course will introduce students to the field of organic electronic materials. The goal of this course is to discuss the origin of electronic properties in organic materials, charge transport mechanisms, chemical synthesis, materials processing, and dev ...

Instructor

Holger Frauenrath

Holger Frauenrath (born in Aachen, Germany) studied chemistry at RWTH Aachen , Germany from 1992 to 1997, with a focus on synthetic organic chemistry. He performed his PhD thesis from 1998 to 2001 in the research group of Prof Hartwig Höcker at RWTH Aachen, working on a project related to the stereospecific polymerization of methacrylates as well as their copolymerization with olefins using zirconocene catalysts. Holger Frauenrath then joined the group of Prof. Sam Stupp at Northwestern University , Evanston, IL, USA, as a postdoctoral fellow supported by a Feodor Lynen fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation . His postdoctoral research projects were centered around the supramolecular self-assembly of rod-coil molecules. Holger Frauenrath returned to Germany in 2003 and started to build his own research group at FU Berlin, funded with an Emmy Noether Grant from the German Science Foundation . In 2005, the research group moved to the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich , Switzerland, where it became a scientifcally independent part of the Polymer Chemistry Group led by Prof. A. Dieter Schlüter . Holger Frauenrath obtained his Habilitation from ETH Zurich in 2009. In 2009, Holger Frauenrath has been appointed as a professor at the Institute of Materials (IMX) of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Switzerland, building the new Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Materials (LMOM) . In the same year, Holger Frauenrath was received the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Investigator grant.

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Related concepts (32)

Organic solar cell

An organic solar cell (OSC) or plastic solar cell is a type of photovoltaic that uses organic electronics, a branch of electronics that deals with conductive organic polymers or small organic molecules, for light absorption and charge transport to produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Most organic photovoltaic cells are polymer solar cells. The molecules used in organic solar cells are solution-processable at high throughput and are cheap, resulting in low production costs to fabricate a large volume.

Solar cell

A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical phenomenon. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device whose electrical characteristics, such as current, voltage, or resistance, vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as solar panels.

Solar-cell efficiency

Solar-cell efficiency refers to the portion of energy in the form of sunlight that can be converted via photovoltaics into electricity by the solar cell. The efficiency of the solar cells used in a photovoltaic system, in combination with latitude and climate, determines the annual energy output of the system. For example, a solar panel with 20% efficiency and an area of 1 m2 will produce 200 kWh/yr at Standard Test Conditions if exposed to the Standard Test Condition solar irradiance value of 1000 W/m2 for 2.

Perovskite solar cell

A perovskite solar cell (PSC) is a type of solar cell that includes a perovskite-structured compound, most commonly a hybrid organic–inorganic lead or tin halide-based material as the light-harvesting active layer. Perovskite materials, such as methylammonium lead halides and all-inorganic cesium lead halide, are cheap to produce and simple to manufacture. Solar-cell efficiencies of laboratory-scale devices using these materials have increased from 3.8% in 2009 to 25.

Organic semiconductor

Organic semiconductors are solids whose building blocks are pi-bonded molecules or polymers made up by carbon and hydrogen atoms and – at times – heteroatoms such as nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen. They exist in the form of molecular crystals or amorphous thin films. In general, they are electrical insulators, but become semiconducting when charges are either injected from appropriate electrodes, upon doping or by photoexcitation. In molecular crystals the energetic separation between the top of the valence band and the bottom conduction band, i.

Related lectures (33)

Solar Cells: Working Principles

Covers the working principles of solar cells and the challenges in improving efficiency.

Photovoltaics

Covers the principles of photovoltaics, including the absorption process, bandgap importance, and electron-hole pair separation.

PC1D Modellization: Spectral Response Analysis

Explores PC1D modeling for solar cell spectral response analysis.

Absorption, generation and recombination

Explores the optical properties of solar cells, focusing on absorption, reflection, and generation of electron-hole pairs.

Thin Film Technologies