Project R-11632

Francqui chair prof. dr. David Beljonne (Research)

Imagine a computational microscope that would resolve motion at length scales down to the nm with a fs time resolution. Watching an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display under such a microscope, you might be able to see electrical charge carriers travelling with some velocity across the multilayer structure of the device, bumping into one another, generating new species or fading away to produce light and heat. These particles move like balls rolling on a soft mattress and carry a unique quantum-mechanical signature known as spin, imposing further constraints on their ultimate fate. How fast do these particles move? What energy landscape do they explore? Which electronic processes do they undergo in the bulk semiconductor or at interfaces? Can we take advantage of spin effects or, at least, reduce their harmful impact on device performance? Most importantly, is it possible to guide the synthetic efforts through the immense chemical space towards molecular or polymer structures and architectures with improved properties? The field of organic electronics has bloomed over the last decades, turning fundamental science into useful technologies such as emissive displays, electronic circuits or photovoltaic cells. During this lecture, I will review some of our efforts devoted to the development of a computational microscope for organic optoelectronic devices in operando, with the overarching objective of identifying how chemical structure at the molecular level affects function at the device scale.

01 October 2020 - 30 September 2021