Press Releases / Pressemitteilungen

On the trail of organic solar cells’ efficiency: Molecular vibrations reduce the maximum achievable photovoltage in organic solar cells

PRESS RELEASE from cfaed @ TU Dresden, March 20, 2020

Published on Fri, 20 Mar 2020 in PRESS RELEASES

Illustration of the generation of charge pairs (excitons), the precursors of free charge carriers in the active layer of an organic solar cell. Credit: M. Panhans

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Scientists at TU Dresden and Hasselt University in Belgium investigated the physical causes that limit the efficiency of novel solar cells based on organic molecular materials. Currently, the voltage of such cells is still too low - one reason for their still relatively low efficiencies. In their study, by investigating the vibrations of the molecules in the thin films, the scientists were able to show that very fundamental quantum effects, so-called zero point vibrations, can make a significant contribution to voltage losses. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications.

World record in research on π-electron structures: Team succeeds in producing dodecacene for the first time

Published on Mon, 17 Feb 2020 in PRESS RELEASES

STM image and schematic representation of dodecacene overlap in this figure. Twelve bright lobes, representing the 12 benzene rings, are well distinguishable.

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A team of international scientists under the lead of Francesca Moresco (Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden – cfaed at TU Dresden) and Diego Peña Gil (Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials – CiQUS at University of Santiago de Compostela) has achieved a breakthrough in the field of π-electron structures research. For the first time, they synthesized a chain of twelve benzene rings, called dodecacene, which is the longest acene ever obtained to date. This was made possible by using on-surface synthesis and observed by scanning tunneling microscopy. The investigation of the properties of higher acenes also revealed an unexpected increase in the energy gap of dodecacene. The scientists have now published their results in the journal "ACS Nano".

Hermetically sealed semi-conductors

New encapsulation technique protects electronic properties of sensitive materials

Published on Tue, 28 Jan 2020 in PRESS RELEASES

[Press release from the Helmholtz Centre Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) dated 28 January 2020. Dr. Artur Erbe is a cfaed associated member. German version via read more.]

Tomorrow’s electronics are getting ever smaller. Researchers are thus searching for tiny components that function reliably in increasingly narrow configurations. Promising elements include the chemical compounds indium selenide (InSe) and gallium selenide (GaSe). In the form of ultra-thin layers, they form two-dimensional (2D) semi-conductors. But, so far, they have hardly been used because they degrade when they get in contact with air during manufacturing. Now, a new technique allows the sensitive material to be integrated in electronic components without losing its desired properties. The method, which has been described in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b13442), was developed by Himani Arora, a doctoral candidate of physics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).

Chemical circuits for the molecular diagnosis and treatment of previously incurable diseases

Published on Mon, 13 Jan 2020 in PRESS RELEASES

PhD student Anthony Beck presents the chemical chip from TU Dresden — PhD student Anthony Beck, co-developer of the technology, holds a chemical circuit with coloured analysis media. On the screen in the background is a microscopic image of one of the chemical transistors of the chemical IC.

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As part of the German government's High-Tech-Strategy 2025, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is funding an interdisciplinary research group that aims to use an innovative circuit technology to solve a central problem of genetic investigation of human single cells. Medical professionals hope that such research will drastically improve the diagnosis and therapy of many serious diseases and enable the treatment of or even cure for cancer and immune diseases, for which there are currently no suitable methods available.

pinMOS: Novel Memory Device Combining OLED and Insulator Can Be Written on and Read out Optically or Electrically

Published on Fri, 22 Nov 2019 in PRESS RELEASES

figure 1: pinMOS memcapacitor - scheme. author: Yichu Zheng — The pinMOS memory - an organic semiconductor device resulting from the combination of an OLED and a capacitor. It has the characteristics of a Memcapacitor, interacts with light and can be written and erased step by step. (C) Yichu Zheng.

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Scientists of the Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials (IAPP) and the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden have developed a novel storage technology based on the combination of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and an insulator. This device allows reading the stored information optically as well as electrically. Moreover, the information can be added in portions - thus several storage states can be mapped in one device. The results have now been published in the renowned journal "Advanced Functional Materials".

Another novelty was related to the measurements in the test series: They were carried out exclusively using the innovative "SweepMe!” measuring software, which was developed by an IAPP / cfaed start-up of the same name.