The very fast development of novel non-fullerene acceptors has allowed overcoming fundamental material limitations of organic photovoltaics (OPV) pushing the power conversion efficiency close to well established inorganic or hybrid material technologies. Furthermore, relevant issues for industrial applications such as large-scale production, device stability and use of eco-friendly solvents for printing have been addressed. This symposium will focus on fundamental challenges of actual research in the field of organic photovoltaics. The symposium will cover development and application of novel donor and acceptor materials. Understanding and controlling loss mechanisms in organic solar cells is one of the central focus points of this symposium together with improvements in fundamental understanding of the device physics by means of advanced characterization and modelling. Controlling the nanoscale morphology of the blend with focus on the intimate contact with the surrounding interfaces will be addressed in order to guaranty optimal photon-to-electron conversion. The development of more suitable interface materials promoting performance and stability gains will be addressed. Large scale processing based on novel or improved process techniques as well as the integration of OPV into scalable commercial applications will be in the focus of the symposium
- Material design of new donors and acceptors
- Fundamental understanding of physics and nanoscale morphology of non-fullerene acceptor based OPV through advanced characterization and modelling
- Material approaches to improve exciton and charge carrier transport in organic semiconductors
- Advances in experimental techniques to study organic semiconductors at nanoscale
- Fundamental understanding and controlling of degradation processes in OPV
- Role of additives and processing techniques in nanoscale control of organic semiconductors
- Material strategies and device concepts for eco-friendly organic solar cells
- Large area processing of high efficiency OPV
- Flexible and stretchable OPV
He studied electrical engineering in Stuttgart and started working on Si solar cells in 2004 under the guidance of Uwe Rau at the Institute for Physical Electronics (ipe) in Stuttgart. After finishing his undergraduate studies in 2006, he continued working with Uwe Rau first in Stuttgart and later in Juelich on simulations and electroluminescence spectroscopy of solar cells. After finishing his PhD in 2009 and 1.5 years of postdoc work in Juelich, Thomas Kirchartz started a three year fellowship at Imperial College London working on recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells with Jenny Nelson. In 2013, he returned to Germany and accepted a position as head of a new activity on hybrid and organic solar cells in Juelich and simultaneously as Professor for Photovoltaics with Nanostructured Materials in the department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the University Duisburg-Essen. Kirchartz has published >100 isi-listed papers, has co-edited one book on characterization of thin-film solar cells whose second edition was published in 2016 and currently has an h-index of 38.
Wouter Maes got his PhD in Chemistry with Professor Wim Dehaen at the Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven (Belgium) in 2005. After post-doctoral stays at the KU Leuven (postdoc of the Research Foundation – Flanders, FWO; with Professor Wim Dehaen), the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris (with Professor Eric Rose) and Oxford University (with Professor Harry Anderson), he became Assistant Professor at Hasselt University in 2009, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014, Professor (Hoogleraar) in 2018, and Full Professor (Gewoon Hoogleraar) in 2021. His research activities deal with the design and synthesis of organic semiconducting materials (with an emphasis on conjugated polymers) and their application in organic electronic devices (organic solar cells, photodetectors, transistors, light-emitting diodes) and advanced healthcare, pursuing rational structure-property relations (see https://www.uhasselt.be/DSOS). These activities are generally combined with more in-depth materials and device physics studies within the framework of the Institute for Materials Research (imo-imomec) of Hasselt University.
Jenny Nelson is a Professor of Physics at Imperial College London, where she has researched novel varieties of material for use in solar cells since 1989. Her current research is focussed on understanding the properties of molecular semiconductor materials and their application to organic solar cells. This work combines fundamental electrical, spectroscopic and structural studies of molecular electronic materials with numerical modelling and device studies, with the aim of optimising the performance of plastic solar cells. She has published around 200 articles in peer reviewed journals, several book chapters and a book on the physics of solar cells.