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Meet the Early Stage Researchers of the SEPOMO MSCA-ITN project

The SEPOMO project (Spins for Efficient Photovoltaic Devices based on Organic Molecules), supported and co-funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie ITN Programme (MSCA-ITN-2016 - Innovative Training Networks), has been "Training the next generation of photovoltaic researchers" since November 2016. Now that the project comes to an end (October 2020), the team has put together a video in which the Early Stage Researchers talk about their experience in the project.

Anna

09 July 2020

The SEPOMO network hosts 15 high level fellowships for joint research and training on efficient photovoltaic devices. The most talented and motivated students were selected for a 3-year advanced multidisciplinary research training. In the video you can see their research projects and the outcomes they enjoyed the most about the project:

ICMAB and SEPOMO

In a previous post "The SEPOMO network is "Training the next generation of photovoltaic researchers"", we already introduced this Innovative Training Network and the reserchers involved.

The ICMAB participates in the SEPOMO MSCA-ITN project as a parnter with two IPs:

Esther Barrena, from the SURFACES group, who is supervising the PhD Thesis of Francesco Silvestri entitled "Nanoscale morphology and microstructure of organic thin films"

"My research was about characterization of organic thin films, mainly focused on AFM and XRD techniques. In particular, the structure investigation of different organic materials and dopants. I really liked the SEPOMO experience because it gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of people from different countries and research groups, and we could discuss a lot about science, which was actually fun" says Francesco Silvestri, PhD researcher at the SURFACES group at ICMAB.

Mariano Campoy-Quiles, from the NANOPTO group, who is co-supervising, together with Eugenia Martínez and Marco Stella from Eurecat, the PhD Thesis of Rana Adel, entitled "Structure-processing-performance nexus of solution processed organic thin films"

"I had the opportunity to touch in detail the industrial challenges for upscaling the OPV devices and SEPOMO has provided me with a strong scientific network that will enrich my future career, and personally I ended up with a lot of international friends" says Rana Adel, PhD Researcher at Eurecat.

Project meeting in Barcelona

The SEPOMO team has done many project meetings, the last one (NWE5), in 11-13 November 2019, was held in Barcelona, at the ICMAB and Eurecat premises. Presentations, tours and workshops were organized by the ICMAB and Eurecat teams.

"Eurecat, the big industrial technology provider of Catalonia, offers business services applied R & D, technology services, technology consulting and highly specialized development of innovative products. In OPV the company focuses on large scale printing of solar cells and SEPOMO team took part in workshop on roll-to-roll and screen printing. At ICMAB, the SEPOMO team visited the Nanostructured Materials for Optoelectronics and Energy Harvesting (NANOPTO) group labs. One of the highlights is the measurements of solar cell degradation by advanced AFM setup. The tour also included a visit to the ALBA synchrotron with 3 GeV electron beam" (SEPOMO news post in their LinkedIn)

The next meeting was planned for March 2020 in Germany but it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, and is yet to be rescheduled.

Figure: SEPOMO team during their project meeting at the ICMAB (Barcelona, 11-13 November 2019).

Some of the publications that have been published in the framework of the project can be consulted in the SEPOMO website. Take a look at them to learn more about Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) devices!

More information

Take a look at the network project website for more information sepomo.eu, and follow @SEPOMO_EU on Twitter to keep updated!

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