*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
PTFE PhD Defense - Nabunkur Deb
Thursday, July 2, 2015
10 a.m.
Room G021, MoSE Building
Committee:
David Bucknall, MSE (Advisor)
Seth Marder, Chemistry
John Reynolds, Chemistry/MSE
Zhiqun Lin, MSE
Elsa Reichmanis, ChBE
TITLE: Morphological studies in polymer fullerene blends
Polymer-fullerene blend systems have found relevance and application in a number of fields including organic photovoltaic devices. While synthesizing new materials with desirable electronic properties is essential to designing better photovoltaic devices, it is equally important to understand the complex phase morphology of these blends and its effect on device performance. Consequently, this knowledge could be used to further design new materials and device architecture for more efficient systems. In particular, this dissertation focuses primarily on the morphology in a series of amorphous as well as semi-crystalline polymer-fullerene blend systems both in bulk and thin films and its relation to device performance. Scattering based techniques have been used to determine in-plane and out-of-plane phase morphology. Morphological parameters derived from these studies have shown possible correlation between fullerene segregation and device performance values. The results of these studies have been used to synthesize a thermo-cross-linkable fullerene acceptor having slower diffusion through the polymer, allowing better control of the polymer-fullerene blend morphology. Consequent effects have been studied on device lifetime and thermal stability and have shown significant improvements.
