Glovebox-Evaporator Cluster System

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Sustainable generation, transformation and storage of energy remains a major global challenge. The discovery of novel functional energy materials is key for unlocking novel concepts and functions for the design of next-generation technologies. Such break-throughs rely on investigations of very clean materials that are fabricated from well-defined synthesis, so that the intrinsic material properties are revealed. A current focus in the group are the solution-processable hybrid metal-halide perovskites, which have emerged as promising polycrystalline semiconductors for optoelectronics, and organic semiconductors. These highly-tunable systems can be processed into thin films by low-temperature solution-based methods, which makes them particularly suitable for applications. Well-defined novel materials are further critical for our advanced spectroscopic methods, such as transient photoluminescence, transient absorption or advanced multi-dimensional spectroscopy, as well as high-resolution optical holographic and nearfield microscopy. These techniques pick up even small contributions from phase-impurities and defects, which would obscure the intrinsic electronic, chemical and structural properties. Combining our expertise in material characterization and state-of-the-art optical spectroscopy we aim for breakthroughs to advance material functionality in the areas of i) Chiral hybrid semiconductors for photonic applications ii) Magnetic hybrid materials for information technologies iii) Mixed electron-ionic dynamics of energy storage materials and iv) Control of coherent light-matter interactions. Thus, synthesis of novel organic/hybrid material systems, also in contacted and multilayer structures relevant for applications, must occur under inert conditions, excluding oxygen and water, to avoid introducing defects, impurities and disorder. Such conditions can only be achieved in gloveboxes which provide the necessary clean and reproducible fabrication conditions with low levels of oxygen and water content, and clean gas atmosphere. Thus, we here seek funding for an integrated glovebox-evaporator cluster for synthesis and processing of novel hybrid and organic semiconductors. The glovebox system will provide versatile fabrication for our materials discovery, ranging from solution-based thin film processing with spin-coating to growth of single-crystals. It is further crucial that an integrated system of solution-based synthesis and thermal evaporation is available, so that fabrication of complete photonic and contacted multilayer systems can be achieved without contaminating interfaces or material surfaces, for successful characterization of excitation dynamics in photonic structures and of energy materials in devices under operating conditions.