Ultrafast nanooptics

Tip-enhanced ultrafast spectroscopy and microscopy of organic solar cells (Meixner, Zhang)

The main goal of this project is to combine parabolic mirror assisted tip-enhanced near-field optical microscopy and ultrafast laser spectroscopy to study ultrafast exciton dynamics in optically active materials with nanometer spatial resolution and femtosecond precision. As a model system we will use e.g. P3HT/PCBM, a prominent blend film system for organic solar cells which forms bulk-heterojunctions with a mean domain size ranging from 5 nm to several tens of nanometers. We target at monitoring ultrafast exciton relaxation and charge transfer in the blend polymer film down to the single-domain level by ultrafast tip-enhanced photoluminescence spectroscopy (TEPLS) and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS).

 

With this project we would like to contribute to a better understanding of the fundamental phenomena concerning the spatiotemporal dynamics of electromagnetic excitation in hybrid nanostructures consisting of a metal and an optically active material, and at the same time address a practical issue - solar energy conversion - by a deeper understanding of the fundamentals about organic solar cell systems on the nanometer scale.


Publications

High-resolution Near-field Optical Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Dai Zhang
Bunsen Magazin 5 (2011) 183
Parabolic Mirror Assisted Gap-Mode Optical Ultramicroscopy
Dai Zhang, Alfred J. Meixner
Handbook of Molecular PlasmonicsPan Stanford Publishing Pte Ltd (2011)
Plasmonic Coupling of Bowtie Antennae with Ag Nanowire
Fang, Z.Y.; Lin, C.F.; Fan, L.R.; Zhang, D.; Meixner, A.J., Zhu, X.
Nano Lett. 11 (2011) 1676
Interfacial Electron Transfer Energetics Studied by High Spatial Resolution Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopic Imaging
Wang, X., Zhang, D., Wang, Y., Sevinc, P., Lu, H. P., Meixner, A. J.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION 50 (2011) A25
Simultaneous Spectroscopic and Topographic Near-Field Imaging of TiO2 single Surface States and Interfacial Electronic Coupling
Papatya C. Sevinc, Xiao Wang, Yuanmin Wang, Dai Zhang, Alfred J. Meixner*, H. Peter Lu*
Nano Lett. 11 (2011) 1490
Super-resolution spectroscopic imaging of plastic solar cells
Meixner, A. J., Wang, X., Zhang, D.
SPIE Newsroom 16 Feb. (2011)
Probing the Nanoscale Phase Separation and Photo-Physics Properties of Low Band-Gap Polymer:Fullerene Blend Film by Near-Field Spectroscopic Mapping
Wang, X., Azimi, H., Mack, H.-G., Morana, M., Egelhaaf, H.-J., Meixner, A.J., Zhang D.*
Small in print (2011)
Nanoscale spectroscopic imaging of organic semiconductor films by plasmon-polariton coupling
Zhang, D.*, Heinemeyer, U., Stanciu, C., Sackrow, M., Braun, K., Hennemann, L. E., Wang, X., Scholz, R., Schreiber, F., Meixner, A. J.*
Physical Review Letters 104 (2010) 056601
High-resolution spectroscopic mapping of the chemical contrast from nanometer domains in P3HT:PCBM organic blend films for solar cell applications
Wang, X., Zhang, D.*, Braun, K., Egelhaaf, H.-J., Brabec, C. J., Meixner, A. J.*
Advanced Functional Materials 20 (2010) 492
Parabolic mirror-assisted tip-enhanced spectroscopic imaging for non-transparent materials
Zhang, D.*, Wang, X., Braun, K., Egelhaaf, H.-J., Fleischer, M., Hennemann, L., Hintz, H., Stanciu, C., Brabec, C. J., Kern, D. P., Meixner, A. J.*
Journal of Raman Spectroscopy 40 (2009) 1371
Confocal and near-field spectroscopic investigation of P3HT:PCBM organic blend film upon thermal annealing
Wang, X., Zhang, D.*, Braun, K., Egelhaaf, H.-J., Meixner, A. J.
Proc. SPIE 7395 (2009) 73950F
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