An open-access database and analysis tool for perovskite solar cells based on the FAIR data principles
Abstract:
Large datasets are now ubiquitous as technology enables higher-throughput experiments, but rarely can a research field truly benefit from the research data generated due to inconsistent formatting, undocumented storage or improper dissemination. Here we extract all the meaningful device data from peer-reviewed papers on metal-halide perovskite solar cells published so far and make them available in a database. We collect data from over 42,400 photovoltaic devices with up to 100 parameters per device. We then develop open-source and accessible procedures to analyse the data, providing examples of insights that can be gleaned from the analysis of a large dataset. The database, graphics and analysis tools are made available to the community and will continue to evolve as an open-source initiative. This approach of extensively capturing the progress of an entire field, including sorting, interactive exploration and graphical representation of the data, will be applicable to many fields in materials science, engineering and biosciences.Insights into the structure and self-assembly of organic-semiconductor/quantum-dot blends
Abstract:
Controlling the dispersibility of crystalline inorganic quantum dots (QD) within organic-QD nanocomposite films is critical for a wide range of optoelectronic devices. A promising way to control nanoscale structure in these nanocomposites is via the use of appropriate organic ligands on the QD, which help to compatibilize them with the organic host, both electronically and structurally. Here, using combined small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering, the authors demonstrate and quantify the incorporation of such a compatibilizing, electronically active, organic semiconductor ligand species into the native oleic acid ligand envelope of lead sulphide, QDs, and how this ligand loading may be easily controlled. Further more, in situ grazing incidence wide/small angle X-ray scattering demonstrate how QD ligand surface chemistry has a pronounced effect on the self-assembly of the nanocomposite film in terms of both small-molecule crystallization and QD dispersion versus ordering/aggregation. The approach demonstrated here shows the important role which the degree of incorporation of an active ligand, closely related in chemical structure to the host small-molecule organic matrix, plays in both the self-assembly of the QD and small-molecule components and in determining the final optoelectronic properties of the system.