Understanding the Microstructure Formation of Polymer Films by Spontaneous Solution Spreading Coating with a High-Throughput Engineering Platform.
Rong WangLarry LüerStefan LangnerThomas HeumuellerKaren ForberichHeyi ZhangJens HauchNing LiChristoph J BrabecPublished in: ChemSusChem (2021)
An important step of the great achievement of organic solar cells in power conversion efficiency is the development of low-band gap polymer donors, PBDB-T derivatives, which present interesting aggregation effects dominating the device performance. The aggregation of polymers can be manipulated by a series of variables from a materials design and processing conditions perspective; however, optimization of film quality is a time- and energy-consuming work. Here, we introduce a robot-based high-throughput platform (HTP) that is offering automated film preparation and optical spectroscopy thin-film characterization in combination with an analysis algorithm. PM6 films are prepared by the so-called spontaneous film spreading (SFS) process, where a polymer solution is coated on a water surface. Automated acquisition of UV/Vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectra and automated extraction of morphological features is coupled to Gaussian Process Regression to exploit available experimental evidence for morphology optimization but also for hypothesis formulation and testing with respect to the underlying physical principles. The integrated spectral modeling workflow yields quantitative microstructure information by distinguishing amorphous from ordered phases and assesses the extension of amorphous versus the ordered domains. This research provides an easy to use methodology to analyze the exciton coherence length in conjugated semiconductors and will allow to optimize exciton splitting in thin film organic semiconductor layers as a function of processing.
Keyphrases
- high throughput
- room temperature
- solar cells
- high resolution
- white matter
- ionic liquid
- single cell
- water soluble
- energy transfer
- deep learning
- solid state
- machine learning
- physical activity
- mental health
- optical coherence tomography
- quantum dots
- particulate matter
- air pollution
- photodynamic therapy
- drug delivery
- healthcare
- heavy metals
- magnetic resonance imaging
- kidney transplantation
- density functional theory
- high speed
- multiple sclerosis
- magnetic resonance
- health information
- reduced graphene oxide
- tandem mass spectrometry
- aqueous solution
- social media