News

Dr. Aruna from Rathinam College, Coimbatore is a specialist for electrocatalysis using diverse semiconductors. She spends three weeks in our group.

Harimohan published a detailed study of influence of composition, morphology and additives on performance of LiFePO4 cathode for applications in all solid-state lithium metal batteries in Scientific Reports, 12(1):5454, 2022. This is very useful for all groups working in all solid state batteries

Andreas published record bulk electron mobilities for fullerene-functionalized polynorbornenes with tuneable glass transition temperature and fullerene contents. The bulk charge carrier mobilities were determined in SCLC devices. DOI: 10.1039/D2TC00496H  J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022, Advance Article

Dominic, Alexander and Harimohan published together a new concept for matrix polymers based on polyesters to realize solid polymer electrolytes with high lithium transport number as well as good specific capacity retention in a wide range of T of 40-80°C and even at high C-rates in solvent-free all solid-state Lithium metal batteries. J. Mater. Chem. A,  2022, https://doi.org/10.1039/D2TA00800A

Under the VAJRA scheme of the Department of Science and Technology, India, Prof. Thelakkat started the visiting faulty position. It involves teahing and research at JNCASR, Bangalore and interactions with other research institutions of interest in India. Teaching classes and practical on New Generation Solar Cells werde conducted for a period of about 3-4 weeks.

We report the high efficacy of p-doping of conjugated polymers using the HOMO-SOMO(HOMO)-doping process involving multi cation salts capable of accepting more than one electron per dopant. In this concept, one can rediuce the molar dopant ratio radically and still achieve appreciably good charge carrier density and high conductivity for low degrees of doping below 5 mol%. The main credit goes to Gert and Adrian ! See Macromolecular Rapid Communications, 2021, 42, 2100443; https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.202100443

A comprehensive investigation of four polydiketopyrrolopyrroles (PDPPs) with increasing ethylene glycol (EG) content and varying nature of comonomer is studied, and guidelines for the design of efficient mixed ion‐electron conductors (MIECs) are published in Adv. Funct. mater. 2021. A considerable cycling stability for 1200 cycles and an outstanding cell compatibility render these PDPPs as viable candidates for in vitro and in vivo bioelectronics.

We reported in Adv. Mater. 2020, a new doping strategy by mixing a hole conductor having partly filled HOMO and a conjugated polymer having fully occupied HOMO resulting in a HOMO-HOMO electron transfer. This was a joint research work with the Pflaum group of University of Würzburg. This concept opens new routes to dope p-type organic semiconductors to obtain highly stable doped systems. It also does not require any acceptor dopant molecule such as a fluorinated TCNQ derivative having low lying LUMO values.

Congrats Philip and his team! Philip, Jonas, Adrian and Florian have established a measurement setup for electrochemical transistors at AFUPO in our research building PNS. This setup is long overdue and allows us to study diverse mixed ion-electron conductor materials available in our research group.

Three new Master students, - Julian Hungenberg and Linus Hager (Bioelectronics) and Lukas Conrad Hennerici (Cathode Materials for Batteries) - joined AFUPO in June 2020. Welcome to AFUPO family.