Overview
Current research interests of Natalie Stingelin and her group include micropatterning of organic materials, organic electronics, applied physical chemistry of organic materials, multifunctional inorganic/organic hybrids and advanced optical systems. Establishing interrelationships between performance, processing and materials’ structure and properties are central topic.
Microfabrication and -Patterning of Organic Materials Key focus is to explore use of well-defined surfaces, both in terms of their chemical and physical attributes, to study a broad range of interfacial phenomena, for instance, charge transport, crystal growth and cell adhesion. To this end, micro-engineered surface structures are designed and realised that cover a broad spectrum of length-scales and a variety of geometries, and we will further develop current and advance novel micro-structuring methods.
Organic Electronics This research concentrates on microfabrication schemes for the manufacture of organic optoelectronic devices, such as field-effect transistors and photovoltaic cells. Particular attention is paid to the creation of model systems with well-defined interfaces and controlled molecular order. The capability to create and tailor organic semiconductors/insulator interfaces will be essential, e.g., to elucidate some of the critical parameters that govern charge transport in organic semiconductors, to advance current technologies and to engineer entirely novel devices.
Applied Physical Chemistry of Organic Materials Efforts are directed towards the development of high-performance, multifunctional architectures by exploiting the phase behaviour of small molecular organic species and/or polymers. As an example, the phase behaviour of small molecular semi-conductors such as oligoacene systems or arene-perfluoroarene compounds is established and utilized to create novel processing routes for these semiconducting materials. Most recent efforts concentrate, for instance, on the physical chemistry of binaries of organic semiconductors critical to the design of organic photovoltaic cells of high efficiencies.
Multifunctional Inorganic-Organic Hybrids The principal objectives in this activity are to tailor and create multifunctional inorganic/organic hybrid structures and thin-film architectures that can be readily processed with straight-forward processing schemes. Interests are two-fold. On the one hand, the highly diverse characteristics of inorganic species are combined with the processability of polymers and exploited for the fabrication of novel multi-functional architectures. On the other hand, efforts are devoted to the design and engineering of model materials systems for opto-electronic and magneto-electronic device applications.
Advanced optical systems Projects have been initiated to develop alternative technologies for the fabrication of multifunctional structures, with emphasis on the manipulation of colour and fabrication of optical filters and high-refractive index coatings. Focus thereby is on the development of photo-chromic species as well as the advancement of microfabrication techniques for the realization of architectures exhibiting structural colours and/or high reflectivity over a selected wavelength regime.
Research Staff
Botiz,I
Buchaca-Domingo,E
Frisk,L
Martin Perez,J
Russo,M
Small,C
Research Student Supervision
Armgahrt,A, Materials scientists' approaches towards bioelectronis applications
Bachevillier,S, New strategies towards solution-processed light- and heat management structures
Dyson,M, Controlling Energy Transfer in Organic Semiconductor Systems
Occhi,L, High-refractive index, transparent electrodes: synthesis, processing and applications
Pacheco Moreno,C, Insulating:semicondcuting blends for bioelectronics applications
Richardson,G, Towards solution-processable 2D-photonic crystals
Scaccabarozzi,A, Controlling the microstructure of organic semiconductors via blending
Strang,A, All-solution-processed organic cavities
Votta,I, Design, synthesis and processing of novel molecular hybrids based on metal oxide hydrates and hydroxylated organic compounds
Yuan,K, Modelling and fabrication of organic light-managment structures