Printed Organic Photodiodes with Enhanced Performance and Simplified Processing

Zukünftige Technologien in den Bereichen Datenübertragung, Industrieautomatisierung, Verbraucherelektronik und medizinische Diagnostik werden von der Entwicklung optischer Sensortechnologien profitieren, die eine kosteneffiziente Fertigung, mechanische Flexibilität, personalisiertes Design und maßgeschneiderte Funktionalität bieten. Eine vielversprechende Klasse von Sensoren, die diese Eigenschaften gewähren, sind Photodetektoren auf der Basis organischer Halbleiter. Sogenannte organische Photodioden (OPDs) haben sich in den letzten Jahren rasch in ihrer Leistung verbessert und ihr Potenzial als komplementäre Technologie zu anorganischen Bauelementen unter Beweis gestellt. Vor allem aber ermöglicht Prozessierbarkeit aus der Flüssigphase die Bauteilfertigung mit industriellen Drucktechniken. Der große Parameterraum des Druckens in Verbindung mit den morphologischen und energetischen Anforderungen von OPDs führt jedoch zu einer Fülle von Herausforderungen, die den Übergang vom Labormaßstab zu relevanten Produktionsmethoden erschweren. In dieser Arbeit werden drei neue Konzepte für die OPD-Fertigung vorgestellt, die zur Bewältigung dieser Herausforderungen beitragen. Es werden alternative - und in einigen Fällen "unkonventionelle" - photoaktive Materialsysteme eingeführt, die gleichzeitig die Verarbeitung vereinfachen, die Leistung verbessern und zusätzliche Funktionalität bieten. Der erste Ansatz konzentriert sich auf die Verwendung von Isolatoren als Prozessadditive für die Herstellung von photoaktiven Schichten. Entgegen der Intuition behindert dies nicht die Funktionalität der OPDs, sondern verbessert sogar die Detektionsgeschwindigkeit durch eine Erhöhung der molekularen Ordnung der Halbleiterschicht. Ein zweiter Ansatz besteht in der Untersuchung einer neuartigen Materialklasse, nämlich den Nicht-Fulleren Akzeptoren (engl. non-fullerene acceptors, NFA), um die Empfindlichkeit in Richtung des nahen Infrarot-Bereichs zu erweitern und zu erhöhen. Diese Studie führte zur ersten Demonstration von digital gedruckten NFA-OPDs mit einer Rekordempfindlichkeit von über 750 nm und Detektionsgeschwindigkeiten im MHz-Bereich. Schließlich ermöglicht ein drittes Konzept die digitale Herstellung mehrfarbiger OPDs, indem ein innovatives Tintensystem entwickelt wird, das die viskoelastischen und optischen Eigenschaften erfolgreich entkoppelt, um die Fertigung zu vereinfachen und die spektrale Flexibilität von NFAs optimal ausnutzt. Die resultierende farbselektive Detektion ermöglicht die Integration der OPDs in ein Mehrkanal-Kommunikationssystem für sichtbares Licht (engl. visible light communication), das eine der vielversprechendsten aufkommenden Technologien im Bereich der optischen Datenübertragung darstellt. Alle drei Ansätze kombinieren herausragende Funktionalität und Leistung mit vereinfachten Herstellungsverfahren und tragen dazu bei das Potenzial von OPDs für das breite Feld der optischen Sensorik erfolgreich auszuschöpfen

Motivations and Benefits for College Students Serving as Mentors in a High School Robotics Competition

Many universities provide space for student organizations in which undergraduate students are learning leadership skills, mentor other students and bring their engineering skills to practice.Purdue FIRST Programs (PFP) is a service-learning program where university students mentor predominantly high school student teams participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). Whereas most FRC teams are mentored by professional engineers, PFP is unique in both the extent which it relies on student mentors and the overall scope of the organization. Existing models of mentorship do not adequately describe the specific relationship between the college and high schools students: (1) Due to the proximity in both age and experience, the college students cannot be considered more experienced (traditional model of mentorship) and (2) Dueto the fact that both student populations are in different educational systems, the college students cannot be considered peer mentors. To help understand this alternative mentoring relationship,this study was conducted to investigate the mentorship experience of the college students, their perceptions of the challenges, their motivations for participating in the program and their perceived benefits. A survey of all participants (n=37 returned) and semi-structured interviews with a purposefully selected sample (n=10) build the basis for this multiple case study. The interview data were transcribed and analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Results indicate that college students\u27 primary motivations for mentoring included wanting to continue working with FIRST after high school, wanting to contribute to the community in appreciation of their positive experiences with FIRST in high school, and enjoying doing the technical work associated with robotics competitions. The primary benefits described by the college students were the development of their leadership ability, learning how to work on a team, improving their ability to communicate, and other process skills. The college students also believed that there were significant benefits for the high school students from being mentored by college students, including developing close relationships because of the minimal age difference, helping the high school students to learn about college life and be more motivated to pursue higher education, and greater collaboration and student input compared to teams mentored by experienced engineers coming from industry. While the students were able to give examples of applying their technical knowledge and skills as mentors, they did not perceive significant learning in this area. The main challenges that the mentors faced included conflict resolution on the team, and making sure that mentors understood their role and did not take over and do work on the robot that should be done by the high school students. Despite these challenges, the participants appreciated being able to stay connected to the FIRST Robotics Competition after high school, the ability to develop communication and leadership skills, the close relationships that they developed with the high school students, and the opportunity to contribute positively to both the local and FIRST Robotics communities. Implications and further research needs will be discussed in the paper

Organic photodiodes: printing, coating, benchmarks, and applications

Organic photodiodes (OPDs) are set to enhance traditional optical detection technologies and open new fields of applications, through the addition of functionalities such as wavelength tunability, mechanical flexibility, light-weight or transparency. This, in combination with printing and coating technology will contribute to the development of cost-effective production methods for optical detection systems. In this review, we compile the current progress in the development of OPDs fabricated with the help of industrial relevant coating and printing techniques. We review their working principle and their figures-of-merit (FOM) highlighting the top device performances through a comparison of material systems and processing approaches. We place particular emphasis in discussing methodologies, processing steps and architectural design that lead to improved FOM. Finally, we survey the current applications of OPDs in which printing technology have enabled technological developments while discussing future trends and needs for improvement

Biodegradable inkjet-printed electrochromic display for sustainable short-lifecycle electronics

The fabrication of electronics on the basis of biofriendly materials aims to counterbalance the negative trends conveyed by the short life-cycle of electronics. Furthermore, these materials open the possibility to develop optoelectronic technologies which will be in contact with the human body. In this work, we present an electrochromic display fabricated by resource- and energy-efficient digital printing techniques. The biodegradation of the device is certified under the ISO 14855 standard. The display comprises of a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) electrochromic layer, a gelatin-based electrolyte and Au electrodes deposited on a cellulose di-acetate substrate. We investigate the impact of various naturally sourced ionic species on the ionic conductivity of the electrolyte and the figures of merit of the display. The printed devices show an electrochromic contrast of 32 ± 4% and switching times of 3.0 ± 1.4 s, comparable to the spincoated reference devices. The utilization of inkjet printing enables the fabrication of different device designs with individually addressable pixels. The display can be worn innocuously on the skin without loss of performance thanks to the self-adhesion properties of the gelatin hydrogel. The present work highlights the use of industrial relevant technology for the fabrication of truly ecofriendly optoelectronic systems

Aerosol‐Jet‐Printed Donor‐Blocking Layer for Organic Photodiodes

Organic photodiodes (OPDs) are optical sensors combining high performance, lightweight mechanical flexibility, and processability from solution. Their fabrication by industrial printing techniques opens a wide range of innovative applications for emerging fields in sensing and the Internet of Things. They typically consist of printed multilayers with functionalities to absorb light, to extract charges, or to reduce detection noise. However, the printing of such device architecture poses a challenge as the deposition of a material can lead to disruption of film morphology or intermixing of materials if its solvent interacts with the previously deposited layer. This work proposes a process to print multilayers from the same solvent system utilizing the aerosol-jet technique. By fine adjustment of the aerosol properties through the tube temperature (TTube), the drying time of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) printed layers is significantly reduced. This allows its deposition onto a P3HT-based bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) without negatively affecting its performance. The additional printed P3HT layer, spatially extends the donor region of the BHJ, providing ideal hole extraction and simultaneous noise reduction by the blocking of injected electrons. This donor blocking layer (DBL) yields a noise reduction of two orders of magnitude in OPDs operated under −2 V reverse bias

Color‐Selective Printed Organic Photodiodes for Filterless Multichannel Visible Light Communication

Future lightweight, flexible, and wearable electronics will employ visible-lightcommunication schemes to interact within indoor environments. Organic photodiodes are particularly well suited for such technologies as they enable chemically tailored optoelectronic performance and fabrication by printing techniques on thin and flexible substrates. However, previous methods have failed to address versatile functionality regarding wavelength selectivity without increasing fabrication complexity. This work introduces a general solution for printing wavelength-selective bulk-heterojunction photodetectors through engineering of the ink formulation. Nonfullerene acceptors are incorporated in a transparent polymer donor matrix to narrow and tune the response in the visible range without optical filters or light-management techniques. This approach effectively decouples the optical response from the viscoelastic ink properties, simplifying process development. A thorough morphological and spectroscopic investigation finds excellent charge-carrier dynamics enabling state-of-the-art responsivities >10² mA W⁻¹ and cutoff frequencies >1.5 MHz. Finally, the color selectivity and high performance are demonstrated in a filterless visible-light-communication system capable of demultiplexing intermixed optical signals

Lab-on-Chip, Surface-Enhanced Raman Analysis by Aerosol Jet Printing and Roll-to-Roll Hot Embossing

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) combines the high specificity of Raman scattering with high sensitivity due to an enhancement of the electromagnetic field by metallic nanostructures. However, the tyical fabrication methods of SERS substrates suffer from low throughput and therefore high costs. Furthermore, point-of-care applications require the investigation of liquid solutions and thus the integration of the SERS substrate in a microfluidic chip. We present a roll-to-roll fabrication approach for microfluidics with integrated, highly efficient, surface-enhanced Raman scattering structures. Microfluidic channels are formed using roll-to-roll hot embossing in polystyrene foil. Aerosol jet printing of a gold nanoparticle ink is utilized to manufacture highly efficient, homogeneous, and reproducible SERS structures. The modified channels are sealed with a solvent-free, roll-to-roll, thermal bonding process. In continuous flow measurements, these chips overcome time-consuming incubation protocols and the poor reproducibility of SERS experiments often caused by inhomogeneous drying of the analyte. In the present study, we explore the influence of the printing process on the homogeneity and the enhancement of the SERS structures. The feasibility of aerosol-jet-modified microfluidic channels for highly sensitive SERS detection is demonstrated by using solutions with different concentrations of Rhodamine 6G and adenosine. The printed areas provide homogeneous enhancement factors of ~4 × 106. Our work shows a way towards the low-cost production of tailor-made, SERS-enabled, label-free, lab-on- chip systems for bioanalysis