Doctoral Candidate (PhD student position) / DC2

Doctoral candidate (DC2)

Project: Recombination mechanisms in fullerene-free photovoltaic devices

This position is one of the 10 Doctoral Candidate positions of the EIFFEL (EffIcient Fullerene-Free organic solar cELs) Doctoral Network, which focuses on the development of efficient NFAs, revealing the mechanisms of operation and degradation in non-fullerene-based organic solar cells (NFA-based OSCs), and establishing synthetic strategies for their mitigation to form the basis for a new generation of OSCs - compatible with mass production - for successful commercialisation. The EIFFEL project offers the possibility to pursue the PhD within the Network at different universities/research centres/industrial companies from 7 European countries (Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Cyprus and France). Background information on all DC positions is available on www.eiffelproject.eu.

EIFFEL has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2022 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Doctoral Networks (HORIZON-MSCA-2022-DN-01) scheme, grant agreement number: 101119780.

Project description:

Objectives: The DC will be trained in fundamental characterisation techniques for solar cell devices, in particular optoelectronic frequency domain methods as well as sensitive photovoltaic subgap quantum efficiency and electroluminescence spectroscopy, to study radiative and nonradiative recombination of charge carriers in NFA OSCs. To complement the experimental approach, the DC will be trained in drift–diffusion device simulation to model solar cells in the frequency domain and steady state, and to fit experiments.

Expected Results: 1) Quantification of recombination losses and radiative quantum efficiency in solar cells by a combination of experimental techniques and device simulations. 2) The recombination rate will be related to device characteristics and morphology .3) The energetics from the sensitive spectroscopy will be related to the energetics from UPS mapping of the active layer. 4) The dominant recombination losses in solar cell devices due to degradation will be elucidated.

The DC will travel abroad for research secondments at partner organisations of the EIFFEL Network and will participate in specialised training meetings and international conferences.

The DC will enroll in the doctoral student programme at Chemnitz University of Technology.