ESR12: Solution-processing of organic semiconductors for achieving high mobility and reproducibility

Supervisor: Marta Mas-Torrent, at ICMAB-CSIC (Degree delivered by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB).

Objectives:

• To develop processing techniques compatible with roll-to-roll fabrication processes in order to realize high mobility thin films of benchmark semiconductors as well as of the novel organic semiconductors synthesised at UHMob. 
• To promote solution wettability, blends of the organic semiconductors with polymers will be employed.
• Significant efforts will be placed on the control of the thin films morphology and crystallinity.
• A large number of devices will be fabricated and tested to ensure high reproducibility, crucial for their transfer to industry.

Expected results:

• A major hurdle to the industrialisation of OFETs is the poor control of crystallisation giving rise to poor device to device reproducibility. The development of processing methods allowing to better control crystallization conditions for narrower transistor characteristics is expected from solution shearing processing.
• Fabrication on flexible substrates will also be pursued, which is desired for low cost and large area industrial applications.

Secondments:

The position includes two secondments in Austria and Germany, for 3 months each:

• Graz University of Technology (Austria):  The objective will be the structural characterization of the organic semiconductor thin films prepared at CSIC, mainly by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD).
• Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany): The purpose here will be to characterise the organic semiconductor thin films by spectroscopic means in order to gain insights into the energy level alignment of the organic semiconductor/metal interface, as well as information on the film morphology (i.e., vertical phase separation in blends of organic semiconductors).

Desired profile of candidates:

• Degree in Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science or similar and related master’s degree.
• Experience in molecular materials or electrical characterisation will be highly valued.

How to apply and more information:

• Visit the ESR12 vacancy here: https://www.uhmob.eu/recruitment-esr-profiles-2/esr12-vacancy/

About UHMob

Ultra-high Charge Carrier Mobility to Elucidate Transport Mechanisms in Molecular Semiconductors (UHMob) is a 48- months multi-site European Training Network (ETN) aimed at enabling multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral training and research in the field of Organic Electronics. It gathers six universities, two research centres, and two companies in Europe who have joint their forces to train 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESR).

UHMob MISSION

The mission of UHMob is to widen the career perspectives of Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) by allowing them to obtain a PhD in a truly multidisciplinary and cross-sectional research environment. The intensive training program, that largely takes advantage of student exchange, is supported by recent scientific breakthroughs of UHMob partners to offer to ESRs the opportunity to carry research at the forefront of Science. Specifically, the scientific objective of UHMob is to gain a fundamental understanding of charge transport mechanisms in molecular semiconductors.

UHMob FOR SCIENCE

The scientific objective of UHMob is to gain a fundamental understanding of charge transport mechanisms in molecular semiconductors. To this goal, best-performing and well-characterized materials will be studied by a complementary set of methods, including field effect transistors but also optical methods such as terahertz spectroscopy, field-induced time-resolved microwave conductivity. UHMob will also explore the coupling of molecular semiconductors with the vacuum electromagnetic field, that is a radically new physical concept holding great promises to modulate optoelectronic properties of materials. 

UHMob RECRUITMENT

Ten institutions at the edge of organic electronics research have joint forces with five partner organisations with the single purpose to recruite, train and increase employability of future professionals.

Benefits

 UHMob offers you the opportunity to:

• Work in an international atmosphere with teams with complementary expertise.
• Perform secondments in other groups, i.e. spend a few months within one of the involved organisation and gain insight on their specific expertise.
• Collaborate with a pool of 15 early stage researchers hired by the project and be in direct contact with experimentalists to confront systematically theory versus experiment.
• Get training on non-scientific transferable skills, such as project management, IPR, ethics, proposal development, etc.

More information:

• UHMob website: https://www.uhmob.eu/
• UHMob Twitter account: @UHMob_MSCA
• Marta Mas-Torrent's group website: https://departments.icmab.es/molecularelectronics/home
• Marta Mas-Torrent's Twitter account: @MMTgroupICMAB
• Leaflet with ESR positions
• ESR12 vacancy: https://www.uhmob.eu/recruitment-esr-profiles-2/esr12-vacancy/