Research facilities

A selection of the research facilities available in our group:

• A cleanroom class 7 with several glove boxes for spin coating, evaporators and preparation of solutions

• Evaporators for deposition of thin layers of metals/compounds or organic materials

• Spin coaters outside (air environment) or inside glove box (N₂ environment)

• Bruker Dektak XT profilometer to determine layer thickness and (large scale) roughness. Computer controlled XY table, vertical resolution down to nanometer scale, horizontal range μm - cm

• Photoluminescence (PL) set-up: Titanium sapphire laser (Mira900) based femtosecond laser excitation. Steady state and time resolved (up to 1 ps resolution) measurements in the visible and NIR spectral range thanks to sets of Hamamatsu streak cameras and steady state detectors. The set-up is equipped with a second and third harmonic generator and it can be coupled to the confocal microscope.

• Nikon Eclipse Ti confocal inverted microscope

• Self-built transient absorption set-up based on a supercontinuum laser source and an auto-balanced photodetector. The laser covers a spectral range from 400 to 1400 nm with an overall time resolution of around 10 ps. A maximum delay of 6 ns is possible in the current configuration. Also see our publication .

• MBraun glove boxes with N₂ environment for electrical measurements of Organic Solar Cells characteristics

• Zehntner ZAA 2300 automatic film applicator with a kniveblade; adjustable speed, heated surface, adjustable knife height

• Probe station for measurements of Organic Solar Cells characteristics

• Agilent E5262A, E5270B & Keithley 4200-SCS IV Analyzers / Semiconductor Characterization Systems

• Ellipsometer J.A. Wollam V-Vase VB-400 for determining thickness and optical properties of thin films

• Bruker Dimension Icon AFM (samples up to 6"), atomic resolution, Scanassist, Peakforce tapping, electrical modes

• Homemade optical setup to determine the EQE of a solar cell

• Photoinduced absorption (PIA) spectroscopy set-up: self-built quasi-steady state photoinduced absorption set-up based on the chopper wheel technique. Several different diode lasers can be used for excitation and a spectral range from the visible to NIR can be covered. The set-up is compatible with a liquid helium cryostat.

• Shimadzu UV-3600

• Shimadzu IRTracer-100

• Maskless Lithography system from Smart Force Technologies (now Microlight3D), Field-Of-View 25.6 mm x 14.4 mm, XY motorized stage, resolution down to 2 μm

• Renishaw confocal Raman in Via Qontor (includes 2 lasers emitting @ 532 and 786 nm, goes down to 10 cm^-1),