International Research Fellowship Program: Zinc Oxide/Low Band gap Polymer Hybrid Photovoltaic Devices

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0965057AmsdenThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four-month research fellowship by Dr. Jason J. Amsden to work with Dr. ChangHee Lee at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea. Organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices offer an intriguing alternative to silicon based devices due to their ease of processing, mechanical flexibility, and low cost. However, at present the power conversion efficiency of OPV is still too low to compete with silicon based devices. Two possibilities for improving the power conversion efficiency in OPV include use of new low band gap high mobility polymers and use of hybrid materials incorporating semiconducting polymers and semiconductor nanocrystals. Polymers with a low band gap more efficiently collect solar radiation and semiconductor nanocrystals such as zinc oxide are advantageous because of their high electron mobility compared to organic molecules, solution processing, and tunable band gap. This research studies for the first time the morphology and charge transport properties of zinc oxide nanocrystal and low band gap polymer hybrid photovoltaic devices. The project will include two main components: The first objective is characterization of the interaction and charge transport properties between low band gap polymers and zinc oxide nanocrystals in various morphologies using various types of spectroscopy and microscopy. The second parallel objective is to investigate the photovoltaic performance of hybrid devices using the insights gained from spectroscopy and microscopy.In addition to the obvious benefit of increased knowledge about organic photovoltaic materials for solar energy conversion, this research will help develop new international collaboration between the PI and research groups at Seoul National University in Seoul, South Korea (Prof. ChangHee Lee and Prof. Do Yeung Yoon), at the Max Plank Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany (Prof. Klaus Müllen), and at Boston University in Boston, USA (Prof. Kenneth J. Rothschild).