SoC collaboration with NIST delivers a better understanding of crystallisation in organic thin films.

SoC researcher, Dr David Jones, in collaboration with scientists from the US Government labs, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has examined crystallisation processes in organic thin films. The efficiency of printed organic solar cells is highly dependent on the morphology development during thin film drying or post deposition annealing. In this new collaboration materials developed in the SoC have been examined during printing, or during post deposition annealing to follow the crystallisation process. For the best systems small crystallites of one material (BTR) are preferentially dissolved then re-precipitated to improve thin film morphology and phase purity in an Ostwald ripening like process.

The work has recently appeared in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A “Film morphology evolution during solvent vapor annealing of highly efficient small molecule donor/acceptor blends” DOI: 10.1039/C6TA05056E.