Organic electronics is a field of materials science concerning the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of organic molecules or polymers that show desirable electronic properties such as conductivity. Unlike conventional inorganic conductors and semiconductors, organic electronic materials are constructed from organic (carbon-based) molecules or polymers using synthetic strategies developed in the context of organic chemistry and polymer chemistry.
Argonne National Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago. The facility is the largest national laboratory in the Midwest.
Molecular engineering is an emerging field of study concerned with the design and testing of molecular properties, behavior and interactions in order to assemble better materials, systems, and processes for specific functions. This approach, in which observable properties of a macroscopic system are influenced by direct alteration of a molecular structure, falls into the broader category of “bottom-up” design.
The Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is a storage-ring-based high-energy X-ray light source facility. It is one of five X-ray light sources owned and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The APS began operation on March 26, 1995. It is operated as a user facility, meaning that it is open to the world’s scientific community, and more than 5,500 researchers make use of its resources each year.
Dieter Martin Gruen is a German-born American scientist, who was a senior member of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received B.S. and M.S. (1947) degrees in chemistry from Northwestern University and the Ph.D. (1951) in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.
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 Argonne–Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center is a joint research program between the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University. Michael R. Wasielewski, Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern founded the ANSER center in 2007 and is its current director. The center's goal is to develop the fundamental understanding, materials, and methods necessary to create efficient and economically viable technologies for solar fuels and electricity production. The union of synthesis, measurement, theory, and engineering allows ANSER to create exceptional new energy conversion systems. As part of its $777 million effort to establish Energy Frontier Research Centers, Grants provided by the US Department of Energy will enable the ANSER "to analyse photosynthesis for ways to create more efficient photovoltaic cells and create hybrid solar cells that have both organic and inorganic components."
There are currently many research groups active in the field of photovoltaics in universities and research institutions around the world. This research can be categorized into three areas: making current technology solar cells cheaper and/or more efficient to effectively compete with other energy sources; developing new technologies based on new solar cell architectural designs; and developing new materials to serve as more efficient energy converters from light energy into electric current or light absorbers and charge carriers.
Nanocrystal solar cells are solar cells based on a substrate with a coating of nanocrystals. The nanocrystals are typically based on silicon, CdTe or CIGS and the substrates are generally silicon or various organic conductors. Quantum dot solar cells are a variant of this approach which take advantage of quantum mechanical effects to extract further performance. Dye-sensitized solar cells are another related approach, but in this case the nano-structuring is a part of the substrate.
Polyfluorene is a polymer with formula (C13H8)n, consisting of fluorene units linked in a linear chain — specifically, at carbon atoms 2 and 7 in the standard fluorene numbering. It can also be described as a chain of benzene rings linked in para positions with an extra methylene bridge connecting every pair of rings.
Marek W. Urban is an American professor and polymer and materials scientist who works in polymers, polymer spectroscopy, stimuli-responsive materials, and self-healing polymers.
Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), previously RONAST, is an autonomous apex body established in 1982 to promote science and technology in Nepal. With the implementation of federal structure by the government of Nepal, it has opened its first provincial office at Mahendranagar.
Diketopyrrolopyrroles (DPPs) are organic dyes and pigments based on the heterocyclic dilactam 2,5-dihydropyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-1,4-dione, widely used in optoelectronics. DPPs were initially used as pigments in the painting industry due to their high resistance to photodegradation. More recently, DPP derivatives have been also investigated as promising fluorescent dyes for bioimaging applications, as well as components of materials for use in organic electronics.
Luis M. Campos is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University. Campos leads a research team focused on nanostructured materials, macromolecular systems, and single-molecule electronics.
Eilaf Egap is an adjunct assistant professor of Materials Science at Rice University. She works on imaging techniques and biomaterials for early diagnostics and drug delivery. She was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology MLK Visiting Scholar in 2011.
Jeffrey Elam is a Distinguished Fellow, Senior Chemist and Group Leader in the Applied Materials Division at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. He leads Argonne's atomic layer deposition (ALD) research program, where he directs research and development and commercialization of thin film coating technologies for energy applications.
Khalil Amine is a materials scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, an Argonne distinguished fellow, and group leader of the Battery Technology group. His research team is focused on the development of advanced battery systems for transportation applications. In addition to his Argonne appointment, he is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, King Abdulaziz University, Hanyang University, and Peking University.
Ellen Moons is a Belgian materials scientist who is a professor at Karlstad University. Her research considers the organisation of molecules and materials in thin films. She is mainly interested in organic and hybrid materials for solution processed photovoltaics.
Tijana Rajh is American materials scientist who is a professor and director of the Arizona State University School of Molecular Sciences. Her research considers the development of nanomaterials and materials for quantum technologies. She was awarded the Association for Women in Science Innovator Award in 2009, and named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014.
Sequential infiltration synthesis (SIS) is a technique derived from atomic layer deposition (ALD) in which a polymer is infused with inorganic material using sequential, self-limiting exposures to gaseous precursors, allowing precise control over the composition, structure, and properties of product materials. This synthesis involves metal-organic vapour-phase precursors and co-reactants dissolving and diffusing into polymers, interacting with the polymer's functional groups via reversible complex formation and/or irreversible chemical reactions, and yielding desired composite materials, which may be nanostructured. The metal-organic precursor (A) and co-react vapour (B) are supplied in an alternating ABAB sequence. Following SIS, the organic phase can be removed thermally or chemically to leave only the inorganic components behind. The precise control over the infiltration and synthesis via SIS allows the creation of materials with tailored properties such as composition, mechanics, stoichiometry, porosity, conductivity, refractive index, and chemical functionality on the nanoscale. This versatility makes SIS useful in applications widely ranging from electronics to energy storage to catalysis. SIS is sometimes referred to as "multiple pulsed vapour-phase infiltration" (MPI), "vapour phase infiltration" (VPI) or "sequential vapour infiltration" (SVI).
