Material Design

Solution processed semiconductors are an exciting alternative to conventional Si or GaAs. In our group we work mainly on organic and perovskite semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. In such devices the interface layers to these semiconductors play an important role. We focus on metal-oxides and modify these layers by different methodes. Charge mobility in the metal oxide material, preventing the rapid extraction of electrons to the electrode, is an inherent limitation in hybrid solar cells. Using materials with extremely high charge mobilities, such as the lead halide perovskite CH3NH3PbI3, has recently resulted in a dramatic and impressive increase in the performance of solution processed solar cells, up to >25 %.

Currently we are investigating different metal-oxides and their nanostructures with the aim to develop new device architectures and understand and control their properties via manipulation to tailor their function for the desired applications.

Metal-oxide Nanostructures

Metal-oxides nanostructures can be easily fabricated in many different shapes and sizes. They can be used in a number of applications. TiO2 for example is a material which is cheap, abundant, non-toxic and highly chemically stable. It is already used in a number of application. Other materials, such as SnO2, ZnO, NiO, etc. are also often employed. In our group we have a number of different setups to prepare such metal oxide films and nanostructures. This ranges from sol-gel methods, to a spray pyrolisis chamber and different atomic layer depositions setups (ALDs), to name a few.