PE-CDT students present at the second annual symposium

Delegates at the symposium

On 12 September 2018, PE-CDT students gathered at Imperial College to present their research to staff, students, external academics and PE-CDT alumni.

On 12 September 2018, PE-CDT students gathered at Imperial College to present their research to staff, students, external academics and PE-CDT alumni.

The morning sessions were chaired by Dr Firat Guder and Prof Martin Heeney respectively. There was also plenty of time for viewing the posters during refreshments and lunch.

Thomas Hodsden, of Cohort 7, an organic chemist in Prof Martin Heeney's group gave the first talk "Towards New Electron-deficient Units for N-type Applications" where he outlined progress relating to the development of some new potential n-type units based on electron-deficient analogues of indacenodithiophene. He was followed by Ryley Ratnasingham, who discussed how the highly scalable technique of aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition can be used to deposit methylammonium lead triiodide thin films for photovoltaic applications. Jaspreet Kainth considered the preparation of hybrid thin films by solution processing (P3HT) and atomic layer deposition (ZnO) for making ambipolar thin film transistor devices. The final talk in the first session was given by PE-CDT alumni Dr George Richardson, who gave a talk entitled "Cheap, Flexible and Lightweight: Life after Plastic Electronics".

Saurav Limbu kicked of the second session of the day with a talk on his research that employs in-situ Raman and X-ray diffraction spectroscopy on pi-conjugated polymer - modified ionic liquid sensor devices to observe the molecular-level conformational and structural information contained within. Ross Warren, who is a PE-CDT student based at the University of Oxford and is supervised by Prof Moritz Reide, discussed how the ambipolar behaviour of organic field effect transistors can be tuned by blending the ratio of co-evaporated ZnPc and F8ZnPc thin films. Before lunch, PE-CDT alumni Dr Luca Occhi gave a fascinating talk on life outside academia, sharing his experience and insights on starting a career in industry.

The first afternoon session, chaired by Prof Ji-Seon Kim, opened with PE-CDT student Shenyang Chen talking about programming and ordering nanospheres into hierarchical structures through geometrical control - essentially using model systems to demonstrate ordered assembly of organic nanoparticles. Julianna Panidi gave a talk entitled "N-type Organic Semiconductor Doping for Thin Film Transistors" and was followed by Luis Lanzetta Lopez's talk on layered hybrid tin halide perovskites. Alice Smith, who is also based at the University of Oxford, discussed spatial patterning of the beta phase in poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) - molecular scale patterning of photonic structures through conformational control. The penultimate session of the day concluded with a guest talk presented by an external academic closely connected to the PE-CDT. Prof Alison Walker of the University of Bath is a member of the CPE/PE-CDT External Advisory Board. Prof Walker presented an engaging talk on multiscale simulations of organic devices and perovskite solar cells.

The final session was opened by Chair Dr Piers Barnes who introduced the first speaker, Tian Du, supervised by Dr Martyn McLachlan in Materials, for his talk entitled "Probing the Origins of Open-circuit Voltage in p-i-n Perovskite Solar Cells" and was followed by student Max Grell who enthused on the versatility of autocatalytic deposition of metals in fabrics using Si ink for energy harvesting, storage and biosensing. Finally, guest speaker Prof James Durrant from the Department of Chemistry discussed the challenges and opportunities in printed photovoltaics.

Prizes were presented for the best talks and posters before an evening reception.

• Best talk prize: Luis Lanzetta Lopez (cohort 7)
• Runner-up talk prize: Saurav Limbu (cohort 7)
• Audience Choice talk prize: Shengyang Chen (cohort 7 Incorporated)
• Best poster prize: Panagiota Kafourou (cohort 8) and Katherine Stewart (cohort 9)
• Runner up poster prize: Luke Salter (cohort 8)
• Audience Choice poster prize: Lokeshwari Mohan (cohort 8)
• Best Flash Presentation: Rebecca Kilmurray (cohort 6)

Congratulations to all the prize winners and to everyone who participated for making the day such a success!