Skip to main content
School of Physical and Chemical Sciences
  1. School of Physical and Chemical Sciences
  2. PhD/Research
  3. China Scholarship Council Project
  4. Minimizing exciton and charge losses in next generation organic solar cell materials with extremely weak vibronic coupling, a single molecule approach

Minimizing exciton and charge losses in next generation organic solar cell materials with extremely weak vibronic coupling, a single molecule approach

Research Group: Chemistry
Number of Students: 1
Length of Study in Years: 4 Years
Full-time Project: yes

Funding

Funding is provided via the China Scholarship Council.  

  • Available to Chinese applicants only.
  • Applicant required to start in September 2025.
  • The studentship arrangement will cover overseas tuition fees for the duration of the studentship.

 

Project Description

Organic solar cells, while highly efficient, continue to exhibit voltage losses larger than those of most inorganic solar cells, limiting their power conversion efficiency. One of the primary causes is non-radiative charge and excited state relaxation processes. This project aims to investigate these mechanisms in individual molecules using single-molecule techniques (drawing on Dr. James Thomas's expertise) and compare the findings to bulk laser spectroscopy experiments (drawing on Dr. Dimitrov's expertise). The results are expected to provide unprecedented insights into modern organic solar cell materials. This will primarily be an experimental project, utilising state-of-the-art equipment at QMUL and materials from Dr. Brandt’s group, as well as systems that have garnered significant recent interest: Nature, 629, p. 355 (2024).

Supervisors:

Stoichko Dimitrov will be the main supervisor (Spectroscopy | Dimitrov Lab); Dr James Thomas (Thomas lab) a co-supervisor; Dr Jochen Brandt a co-supervisor (Brandt Lab).

Dimitrov leads the Photophysics and Photochemistry group with world leading laser spectroscopy and materials development expertise at the Department of Chemistry at QMUL (ranked 8th for Impact and 9th for research outputs in the UK). Dr Thomas leads a group on single molecule characterisation and transistor devices at the Department of Physics at QMUL. Brandt leads a group working on the interaction of chirality and spin at the Department of Chemistry at QMUL.

 

Relevant publications:

Requirements

Application Method:

To apply for this studentship and for entry on to the Chemistry programme (Full Time) please follow the instructions detailed on the following webpage:

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/spcs/phdresearch/application-process/#apply

Deadline for application - 29th of January 2025

Supervisor Contact Details:

E-mail: s.dimitrov@qmul.ac.uk

SPCS Academics: Dr Stoichko Dimitrov

Research Group: Chemistry
Number of Students: 1
Length of Study in Years: 4 Years
Full-time Project: yes

Funding

 

The studentship is funded by Royal Society. It will cover home tuition fees, and provide an annual tax-free maintenance allowance for 4 years.

This project will only be available to home fee students.

Project Description

Quantum technologies could revolutionise many sensing or computing applications but are mostly limited to controlled environments with mK temperatures to avoid decoherence. The weak spin-orbit coupling in organic molecular spin systems could reduce decoherence while the flexibility of organic synthesis would allow high structural control and optic and electric tunability. However, even with such molecular systems, the room temperature initialisation, manipulation and read-out of molecular qubits is hard to achieve. Over the last two years, researchers have proposed new approaches that could allow such room temperature spin interfaces. Intriguingly, these systems must employ materials that exists in a left or right “handedness”: as mirror-images that cannot be superimposed. Materials with this symmetry are called “chiral” and they can display an unusual room temperature spin-selective electron transport (chiral induced spin selectivity) that is the basis of the proposed spin manipulations.

This project will involve the synthesis of helicene-based model systems that combine a known high-temperature spin-optical interface with a CISS-based spin-processing approach. The successful candidate will design and synthesise small libraries of compounds based on two different spin interface motifs and assess the impact of structural changes and the helix length on the exchange interaction between two radical groups, the rate of energy transfers, and the spin polarisation. The proposed helicene systems can be obtained through late-stage diversification of common helicene intermediates that are accessible on gram scale through my group’s newly developed photochemical synthesis in continuous flow (DOI 10.26434/chemrxiv-2024-cgnhq-v3). While traditional, batch-based photochemical reactions can be difficult to scale, our preliminary results have shown robust helicene yields up to 9.8 mmol (79% yield). Using these helicenes, we will then assess the relationship between the structure and the strength of the observed quantum effects in collaboration with colleagues in the Physics department, helping us to move our research towards single molecule systems and, ultimately, towards quantum devices. The ideal candidate should have some experience in synthetic chemistry and be interested in exploring a highly interdisciplinary, collaborative, and dynamic field of scientific research. The position is available within the research group of Royal Society University Research Fellow Dr Jochen Brandt at the Department of Chemistry, part of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). The Department’s strong research performance is evidenced by the 8th place in the UK for Research Impact and the 9th place in the UK for Research Output in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021. The Department is located on the Mile End campus, only 20-30 minutes from central London by public transport. 

Requirements

Application Method:

To apply for this studentship and for entry on to the Chemistry programme (Full Time) please follow the instructions detailed on the following webpage:

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/spcs/phdresearch/application-process/#apply

Supervisor Contact Details:

For informal enquiries about this position, please contact Dr Jochen Brandt

E-mail: j.brandt@qmul.ac.uk

Application Method:

To apply for this studentship and for entry on to the PhD programme (Full Time) please follow the instructions detailed on the following webpage:

https://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/subjects/chemistry.html

Further Guidance: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/

Deadline for applications: We will consider applications on a rolling basis, applicants are advised to apply quickly for consideration.

SPCS Academics: Dr Jochen Brandt

Back to top