Scanning Probe Microscopy Laboratory

Thibaut, our first group member successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Co-evaporation and scanning probe microscopy characterizations of hybrid halide perovskite thin films for solar cells". Congratulations Dr. Gallet ! Pictures can be found in the gallery.

Our collaboration (KPFM/STS on perovskites) with the Laboratory of Photomolecular Science at EPFL, and other groups, resulted in a published work in Energy & Environmental Science. You can read it here :https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/ee/d1ee02454j
Congratulations to everyone involved !

In July, we wecolmed our second PostDoc, Dr. Ajay Singh. He recently submitted his PhD at the Technical University of Munich, Germany. He will work on applying novel growth and characterization techniques to produce highly efficicent halide perovskite solar cells via multi-stage co-evaporation. Good luck to him !

Our paper on the impact of KPFM operation modes and environment on grain boundaries band bending in perovskite and CIGS is now out and published in Nano Energy. You can read it following this link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211285521005255
Congratulations to everyone involved !

We are extremely happy that our group and research are featured in the #letzSCIENCE campaing of the Fonds Nationals de la Recherche ! A KPFM overlay of a perovskite absorber is displayed on larger 2m posters at all tram stations in Luxembourg and in selected buses !! Go read the story behind the image and have a augmented reality experience of solar energy : https://letzscience.fnr.lu/solar-energy-a-science-with-many-layers

We warmly welcome our first PostDoc, Dr. Jeremy Hieulle. He was previously a PostDoc in the groups of José Ignacio Pascual at CIC nanoGUNE, Spain and Yabing Qi at OIST, Japan. Within our group, he will work on upgrading the UHV SPM/XPS system with UPS and study halide perovskites by combining these different techniques. We are happy to have you with us Jeremy !

We warmly welcome Robert Himelrick in our group, who will be our new R&D-mechanical engineer and technician. Looking forward to setting up new experiments and tools !

We have uploaded a new preprint on arXiv where we investigated the impact of KPFM operation modes and environment on grain boundary band bending in perovskite and Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells. You can find the version here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.02977

We are recruiting two Postdoctoral researchers, one for the upgrade of our current infrastructure with a XPS/UPS/AES system to study perovskite, the second one to apply novel growth and characterization methods for the fabrication of perovskite solar cells. More information: https://t.co/89YexQHXo1?amp=1

Happy new year everyone ! The SPM Lab wishes you great successes in your future work and life. To start off the new year well, you can read our new paper entitled Co-evaporation of CH3NH3PbI3: How Growth Conditions Impact Phase Purity, Photostriction, and Intrinsic Stability, out in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. Congratulations to everyone involveld. You can access it via: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.0c19038

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Besides, our XPS setup has now been installed in our UHV SPM and can now be used. Looking forward for the UPS extension !

Our new paper on Electronic and compositional properties of the rear‐side of stoichiometric CuInSe2 absorbers is available in Progress in Photovoltaics. Read it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.3380

We are recruiting one PhD student for the preparation by co-evaporation of perovskite films and solar cells as well as their characterization using scanning probe microscopy and photoluminscence analysis. Follow this link for more information and to apply: http://emea3.mrted.ly/2kwan

Another group member joins us in the beginning of this semester. It's Joana and she will be doing her PhD on the fabrication and characterization of tin-based perovskites. Good luck !

We warmly welcome our two new Master students, Joé Seil, who will work on the fabrication of MAPI devices using co-evaporation and self-assembled monolayer, and Uzair Farooq, who will work on the characterization of 2D materials (MoS2) using KPFM. Lastly, we say goodbye to Ricardo, who will do his PhD thesis with Proffesor Dr. Philip Dale. Congratulations !

Two good news this week. Firstly, we warmly welcome our new PhD student Anjala Jayaraj. She will be working on the fabrication of Sn-based perovskites and their characterizations. Secondly, we can finally go back to our labs and continue our measurements where we left them off !

Our new paper on the passivation of the CuInSe2 surface via cadmium pre-electrolyte treatment is out in Physics Review Materials. Congratulations to Christian and everyone involveld. You can access it via: https://journals.aps.org/prmaterials/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.045405

Starting today and because of the COVID-19 outbreak, we will be working from home to preserve our group members' safety. We have a lot of data to analyse, papers to read and papers to write. All measurements are on hold and we hope to come back soon in our labs.

If EMRS and MRS conferences do no get canceled, Thibaut will give a talk on how stoichiometry alters the stability of MAPI at MRS. Evandro will give a turorial on Scanning Probe Microscopy, Christian will present a poster on CIGS and Alex will give a talk on KPFM of perovskite/CIGS at EMRS.

We welcome our new PhD student, Himanshu Phirke, who will work on the optical and electrical characterization of perovskite, CIGSe and photoferroelectric materials. This includes the development of a hyperspectral TRPL imaging setup and SPM measurements.

Our new conference papers of the IEEE PVSC 2019 are out. You can read them here:

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8980602

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8981200

The AFM under ambient conditions has been moved to its new room in the basement. It is now enclosed in a tight box which will be filled with nitrogen, and on an anti-vibration table.

The bakeout of the Omicron VT-AFM is finished. We added an alkali evaporator, a mass spectrometer, a STM tip preparation tool.

We welcome our new PhD student, Jonathan Rommelfangen. He won a FNR AFR PhD grant and will be working on the 2D materials MoS2. We also welcome a new Master student, Ricardo Gonçalinho who will be working with us and together with IEE on perovskite grown on graphene.

Our new paper on Physical routes for the synthesis of kesterite is out in Journal of Physics Energy. Read it here: https://bit.ly/2QNYm6u

Our new paper on Fermi-level pinning in methylammonium lead iodide perovskites is available in Nanoscale. Read it here: https://rsc.li/2QmSPUl

Our new paper on the impact of energy alignment and interfacial recombination on the internal and external open-circuit voltage of perovskite solar cells is out in Energy & Environmental Science. Read it here: https://rsc.li/2plZVxk

Evandro and Thibaut presented their work at the IEEE conference in Chicago. 2 conference proceedings will be published in November this year.

Alex and Christian gave talks at the MRS conference in Phoenix.

Thibaut presented his work on co-evaporated methylammonium lead iodide perovskites in the poster session of the EUPVSEC in Brussels.

We welcome Evandro from Brazil in our group. He will start his PhD on the characterization of expitaxially grown CIGS.

We welcome Christian from Cameroun in our group. He will start his PhD on the characterization of polycristalline CIGS.

Arrival of the evaporator and the glovebox for the growth of the hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites.

Acceptance test of the Omicron VT at the University of LuxembourgFirst atomically resolved STM images on Si(111).

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First atomically resolved STM images on Si(111).

Thibaut joins the group. He will carry out his PhD thesis on the topic: Hybrid organic inorganic perovskites studied by scanning probe microscopy. Welcome Thibaut!

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Arrival of the SPM apparatus