IRFP: Controlling the Order of Functional Polymers and Their Corresponding Blends

国际研究奖学金项目使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9至24个月的研究。该计划的奖励为联合研究提供了机会，并利用独特或互补的设施、专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项由国际科学与工程办公室以及电气、通信和网络系统部的电子、光子学和磁性器件项目共同资助。该奖项将支持Neil D. Treat博士与Natalie Stingelin博士在英国伦敦帝国理工学院开展为期12个月的研究。社会面临的挑战之一是开发一种清洁、可再生和可持续的能源。有机光伏（opv）作为一种低成本的解决方案提供了巨大的潜力，因为它们能够在大面积上进行溶液处理。目前，opv的功率转换效率估计已接近实现经济可行性所需的10%，但进一步的改进和大面积利用率取决于对如何控制其复杂微观结构及其对器件性能的影响的更深入了解。因此，获得对共混结构的控制对于opv的持续技术发展至关重要，从而使其成为可再生和可持续的能源。该项目目前正在开发通过添加添加剂来控制opv材料微观结构的策略。该策略提供了一种控制有源层微观结构的方法，可用于进一步加深我们对该系统的基础和实际理解。具体来说，这个项目是使用成核剂——控制半结晶聚烯烃微观结构的添加剂——来控制OPV材料的有序，并将这种变化与它们的电子特性联系起来。该项目的主要目标是将整齐聚合物基器件的分子有序变化与电子性能联系起来，并了解聚合物结构如何影响成核效率和由此产生的电子性能。第二部分涉及将这种理解扩展到开发大面积涂层的加工策略。事实上，成核剂的使用是一种尚未开发的，但对于控制OPV材料的微观结构可能有用的策略。

The 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 is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering and by the Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices Program in the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division. This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship by Dr. Neil D. Treat to work with Dr. Natalie Stingelin at Imperial College London in London, United Kingdom. One of society's challenges is to develop a clean, renewable, and sustainable energy source. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) offer great potential as a low-cost solution to this need because of their ability to be solution processed over large areas. Currently, OPVs are approaching the estimated 10% power conversion efficiency needed to achieve economic viability, but further improvement and large area utilization is predicated on a deeper understanding of how to control their complex microstructure and how this affects the device performance. Thus, gaining control over the blend microstructure is of utmost importance for the continued technological development of OPVs so that they may be realized as a renewable and sustainable energy source. This project is currently developing strategies to control the microstructure of OPVs materials through the addition of additives. This strategy provides a means to control the active layer microstructure, which can be used to further both our fundamental and practical understanding of this system. Specifically, this project is using nucleating agents - additives that control the microstructure of semicrystalline polyolefins - to control the ordering in OPV materials and to correlate this change to their electronic properties. The main goal of this project is to link the changes in the molecular ordering of neat polymer based devices to the electronic performance and understanding how the polymer architecture can influence the efficiency of nucleation and the resulting electronic properties. The second portion involves extending this understanding to develop processing strategies for large area coating. Indeed, the use of nucleating agents is an unexplored, but potentially useful strategy for controlling the microstructure of OPV materials.