Descripción del proyecto
THE BASIC PROCESSES GOVERNING THE FUNCTION OF ANY SOLAR CELL OCCUR ON THE NANOSCALE: ELECTRON-HOLE PAIR PRODUCTION, ITS DISSOCIATION, AND THE TRANSPORT TO THE (METALLIC) ELECTRODES, IN THE CASE OF NEXT GENERATION SOLAR CELLS PRODUCED FROM INKS, THE THIN FILMS INCORPORATING THE ACTIVE MATERIALS HAVE A THICKNESS OF LESS THAN A MICRON, FOR THE CASE OF BATTERY APPLICATIONS, THE ESSENTIAL ELECTROCHEMICAL PROCESSES RELATED TO ENERGY STORAGE OCCUR ALSO ON A NANOMETER SCALE, USUALLY AT A SOLID-LIQUID INTERPHASE, THEREFORE, UNDERSTANDING NANOSCALE PHENOMENA OCCURRING AT SURFACES AND INTERFACES IS ESSENTIAL FOR THESE CRUCIAL ENERGY CONVERSION AND ENERGY STORAGE APPLICATIONS, TO CHARACTERIZE THESE INTERFASES AT THE MESO AND NANOSCALE APPROPRIATE INSTRUMENTATION IS NEEDED, SCANNING FORCE MICROSCOPY(SFM) ALLOWS TO MEASURE A VARIETY OF PROPERTIES ON A NANOMETER SCALE; IN PARTICULAR: MORPHOLOGY AND ROUGHNESS, MECHANICAL PROPERTIES, CONDUCTIVITY, ELECTROSTATIC PARAMETERS AND CONTACT POTENTIALS/FERMI LEVELS, CORRESPONDINGLY, SFM IS AN IDEAL TOOL FOR NANOSCALE RESEARCH IN ENERGY RELATED MATERIALS AND FUNCTIONAL DEVICES, OUR SUB-PROYECT -NANO AND MESOSCALE MODELLING, STRUCTURE AND CHARACTERIZATION- IS CENTRED ON THE NANOSCALE CHARACTERIZATION OF MATERIALS AND FUNCTIONAL UNITS PREPARED BY OTHER PARTERS IN THE INTEGRATED PROYECT NEXT-ENER, A VARIETY OF ADVANCED SFM TECHNIQUES WILL BE APPLIED TO MATERIALS AND (NANOSCALE) DEVICES USED AND FABRICATED IN THIS COORDINATED PROJECT, SINCE SOLAR CELLS ARE ELECTRO-OPTICAL DEVICES, WE WILL COMBINE SFM STUDIES (CONTACT POTENTIAL MEASUREMENTS AND CONDUCTIVITY) WITH OPTICAL CHARACTERISATION OF SAMPLES, INCLUDING NANOSCALE SURFACE PHOTOVOLTAGE MEASUREMENTS, TO COMPLEMENT THE HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION OF SFM WITH THE POWER OF OPTICAL TECHNIQUES WE WILL PERFORM COMBINED SFM EXPERIMENTS AND SPECTROSCOPIC CHARACTERIZATION (IN PARTICULAR CONFOCAL MICRO RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY) ON THE SAME MICRO/NANOSCALE POSITION, OUR GROUP HAS EXTENDED ITS EXPERIENCE OF NON-CONTACT SFM IN AIR ENVIRONMENT TO OPERATION IN LIQUIDS, THEREFORE WITH REGARD TO THE FIELD OF BATTERY APPLICATIONS, WE WILL ALSO OPERATE THE SFM IN WELL CONTROLLED ELECTROCHEMICAL ENVIRONMENTS TO STUDY MATERIALS AT THE SOLID-LIQUID INTERPHASE,IN ADDITION, WE WILL FOCUS ON THE UNDERSTANDING AND MODELLING OF BASIC PHENOMENA RELATED TO ENERGY HARVESTING AND CHARGE TRANSPORT PROCESSES, AS WELL AS ON THE MODELLING OF THE FINAL FUNCTIONING AND PERFORMANCE OF DEVICES (SOLAR CELLS AND BATTERIES) FABRICATED IN THE PROJECT, MODELLING WILL INCLUDE ACCURATE UNDERSTANDING OF TIP-SAMPLE INTERACTION, WITH PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON EXTRACTING RELEVANT PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SAMPLES FROM (MULTIDIMENSIONAL) EXPERIMENTAL SFM DATA, TRANSPORT PHENOMENA IN CRYSTALLINE DISORDED MATERIAL WILL BE MODELLED USING CLASSICAL TRANSPORT THEORIES AS WELL AS QUANTUM TRANSPORT MODELLING TAKING INTO ACCOUNT DISORDER, COULOMB GLASS EFFECTS AND TRANSPORT IN AN-ISOTROPIC AND 2D MATERIALS,ANOTHER FIELD OF RESEARCH WILL BE THE STRUCTURING OF THIN FILMS, EITHER BY SELF-ASSEMBLY DURING DRYING OF THE INKS APPLIED TO APPROPRIATE SUBSTRATES, OR BY USING LIGHT INDUCED FORCES AND/OR PATTERNED SUBSTRATES TO FAVOUR STRUCTURE FORMATION, FINALLY, WE WILL STUDY THE TRANSFER OF BIO-INSPIRED TECHNOLOGIES TO THE FIELD OF SOLAR CELL RESEARCH, IN PARTICULAR SELF-CLEANING AND UV BLOCKING USING APPROPRIATE (TRANSPARENT) COVERING OF SOLAR CELLS, CELULAS SOLARES\PROCESADO EN DISOLUCION\MATERIALES PARA ENERGIA\INTERFACES\NANO CARACTERIZACION\MICROSCOPIA FUERZA\MICROSCOPIA KELVIN\ELECTRONICA MOLECULAR\MOJADO\AUTO-ENSAMBLAJE