I Have a Research Support System

This week, Xu Qiu basically spent in Zhang Jiang's laboratory.

On Tuesday morning, after getting the two newly purchased monomers, he voted for four responses.

There are two target products, namely P2FBT4T-2OD and P2FBT4T-2DT, each of which voted two.

On Tuesday night, the reaction was shut down and capped, and then Soxhlet extraction was performed with a mixed solvent. The experiment ended at 12 o'clock in the evening and stayed overnight in Zhangjiang.

On Wednesday morning, I rushed back to the Handan campus for class, and in the afternoon I went back to do post-processing, chloroform Soxhlet extraction, drying, and ended the experiment at 11 o'clock in the evening, and stayed overnight in Zhangjiang again.

All went well with no accidents.

After all, a total of more than a dozen responses have been submitted in the past few weeks, and he is already familiar with the experimental operation.

The only regret is that he was the only one in Zhang Jiang's laboratory all the time. He neither saw Chen Wanqing nor Han Jiaying, and even Duan Yun didn't come over.

On Thursday morning, Xu Qiu returned to the Handan campus with the fifth batch of products to verify the photoelectric properties of the materials.

Prepare the solution and prepare the device.

Chen Wanqing leaned against the glove box and asked:

"Guess how much efficiency can be achieved?"

"It was 7% before, but this time the probability will be higher, maybe it will be 8% this time."

Xu Qiu returned in a hurry after synthesizing the materials, and didn't have time to test them in the simulation laboratory, so he didn't dare to talk too much.

"If you can get 8%, you will be well-off, junior."

"The specific result will be known after the test."

start testing.

...

Unexpectedly, a good start!

The first piece of device, the efficiency is achieved,

8.88%!

This is a P2FBT4T-2OD based system, as previously expected.

From the earliest PBT4T, after three generations of iterations, the photoelectric performance has finally made a breakthrough.

For a new system of organic photovoltaics, 8% is an important watershed, which means that the work has the opportunity to be published in a regional journal.

And now it is only preliminary results, there is still room for further improvement.

The next major watershed is the efficiency reaching 10%.

If realized, it would be a first-of-its-kind achievement.

So far, in the field of organic photovoltaics, systems with an efficiency exceeding 10% can be counted on one hand.

"This value is quite auspicious." Xu Qiu said with a smile.

"Yeah, you're almost close to 9%, let's talk to Teacher Wei about the result first."

"Tell him now? Don't wait until the group meeting?"

"The data is so good, he may make some arrangements, let's go now."

...

Room 218.

After listening to the two reports, Wei Xingsi was a little excited:

"The efficiency is now close to 9%?"

"Still an unoptimized result?"

After getting an affirmative answer, he waved his hand and said quickly:

"Chen Wanqing, stop what you're doing and work on his system with Xu Qiu first."

"Device performance, various characterizations, and writing articles are three-pronged. We must submit this work before others."

"OK."

The two nodded, and each received a can of coconut juice.

Some time ago, Teacher Wei once wanted to get out a drink, but when he reached out, he got lonely.

Looks like the fridge is restocked now.

...

Xu Qiu's next main work is the three points that Mr. Wei said:

Continue to optimize device performance, supplement various characterizations, and write articles.

For an excellent academic paper, both innovation and excellent performance are indispensable.

These two points are like the skeleton, supporting the whole article.

But the skeleton alone is not enough, and other characterization data are needed as evidence to make the whole system more complete.

For example, in the field of organic photovoltaics, if it involves the synthesis of new materials, it is necessary to use gel chromatography GPC to test the relative molecular mass and polydispersity coefficient of the material, and to obtain the proportion of various elements in the material through elemental analysis. To test nuclear magnetic resonance NMR, hydrogen spectrum and carbon spectrum.

Then there is a series of characterization tests:

Thermal characterization, including differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), used to test the glass transition temperature and crystallization temperature of the material, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), to obtain the thermal decomposition temperature of the material.

Optical characterization, including light absorption spectrum UV-vis, fluorescence spectrum PL, and more advanced characterization methods - transient light absorption spectrum TA, transient fluorescence spectrum TRPL.

For electrochemical characterization, use cyclic voltammetry CV to test the energy level structure, mainly HOMO/LUMO energy level, and calculate the forbidden band width.

Morphological characterization, including transmission electron microscope TEM, atomic force microscope AFM, scanning electron microscope SEM.

Molecular packing structure, including grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray diffraction GIWAXS, etc.

These are based on polymer donor materials, or effective layer blend thin film characterization means.

In addition, there are characterization tests for battery devices:

Photoelectric performance characterization, including the most important J-V characteristic curve, and external quantum efficiency EQE.

Charge transport kinetics research, including linear carrier pressurization method CELIV, time-of-flight method TOF, space charge limited current method SCLC.

After a whole set of processes has been completed, if different representation methods can confirm each other and the conclusions obtained are not self-contradictory, this kind of work will be perfect.

But in reality, it is difficult to have such an ideal situation.

On the one hand, not all researchers have a full set of characterization equipment available, such as GIWAXS and TA, which are not available in most laboratories.

On the other hand, the conclusions obtained by different characterization methods may be different, so it is necessary to make some trade-offs and reasonably select experimental data for discussion.

Moreover, after testing so much data hard, not all of them can be put into the text, most of the data are hidden in the corner.

This is because journals have requirements for the length of published articles and the number of pictures, and different journals have different requirements.

In the field of organic photovoltaics, articles in the Communication format generally have about 5 text images, and Article format articles have about 7 text images.

Other pictures can only be placed in the supporting information as supplementary material.

...

Now this work based on P2FBT4T-2OD, although Xu Qiu has not started to write an article, but the core problem has been overcome by him, and the rest of the work is much easier.

As for whether the device efficiency can reach 10%, it depends on God's will.

There was class on Friday morning, and Xu Qiu didn't plan to go to the laboratory in the afternoon, so he asked Chen Wanqing for leave on WeChat.

Now the simulation laboratory has been accelerated by four times, and the weekly task point reward has also doubled, which is very suitable for exploring experimental conditions.

Moreover, there may be other research groups doing the same research, so we must hurry up and finish the work before them.

Therefore, Xu Qiu plans to find a secret place and enter the simulation laboratory to see if he can improve the performance of the device.

Zhang Jiang's laboratory is a good place to go.

Thank you Lan Shiyu for rewarding 1500 starting coins, and Lanzang Wenyuan for rewarding 100 starting coins.