Trinity College Dublin

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Facilities

The group's facilities include a fully functional organic synthesis chemistry laboratory, device fabrication and testing laboratory, high performance parallel computer, various LASER systems, including a state of the art femtosecond multiwavelength system and optical, electrical and magnetic resonance material characterisation facilities. Due to their unique combination of processibility and semiconducting properties organic materials now rival inorganics such as silicon in certain areas of electronics and optoelectronics.

• Lasers:
  A range of lasers and optical techniques are available. These include a state of the art amplified femtosecond Titanium/Sapphire system which pumps an OPA enabling visible tunable time resolved measurements to be performed. A high power picosecond Nd:YAG laser is used to pump a Degenerate Four Wave Mixing set up. Visible tunable Z-scan is performed using a nanosecond pumped dye system. A Frequency Resolved Optical Grating is applied to a Soliton Laser which operates at 1.5mm.
• Electrical Characterisation:
  Electronic devices are characterised using both A.C. and D.C. Test and Measurement techniques, over the temperature 15-300K. Material properties such as Conductivity, Mobility and Relative Permittivity are calculated. Electroluminescent spectra and spectral brightness are recorded using a CCD camera and a Luminance metre. Novel devices including single, double and triple layed structures are tested. New device architectures are actively researched enabling smaller, brighter and more efficient devices to be fabricated.
• Optoelectronic Characterisation:
  Solar cells are tested using a solar lamp as the photoexcitation source and electrical Test and Measurement instrumentation to record the photocurrent. Time of Flight measurements are performed to measure the electrical properties of materials. Photoinduced Absorption is performed using a diode laser as the pump beam and a solar lamp as the probe. The changes in the transmission of the probe beam enable changes in the electronic states to be observed, allowing the photophysics of the material to be studied.
• Device Preparation:
  Sputtering and Thermal Evaproation thin film metal deposition tools are used with a range of metals to fabricated electrodes and other device structures. Uniform thin polymer films are formed using spin coating. A number of ovens are available including a vacuum oven, to assist with film preparation. Photolithography is used to pattern Indium Tin Oxide elcetrodes.
• Materials Characterisation:
  The group can characterise materials using UV-Vis Spectroscopy, Luminescence Spectroscopy, FTIR-(bench & microscope), Raman Spectroscopy, NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonence), GPC (Gel Permeation Chromatography), CV (Cyclic Voltammetry), EPR (Electron Paramagnetic Resonance), DSC (Differential Scanning Calorimetry), TGA (Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis), DMTA (Dynamical Mechanical Thermal Analysis), HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography)
• Chemistry Facilities:
  The Group has two chemistry laboratories. One is used for chemical synthesis and the other for general chemistry preperation. Both laboratories are well equipped to provide both staff and students with all necessary equipment to perform their research.