Revealing the morphology formation mechanisms in organic BHJs: from in-situ characterization studies to alternative processing methods

In this thesis, the motivation was to reveal the interplay between solution thermodynamics and drying kinetics of morphology formation in bulk heterojunction films in organic solar cells and to utilize this information to develop an alternative processing method which could eventually simplify the process chain and enable more direct transfer of lab scale formulations to large scale. One of the main targets was to develop a combinatorial characterization method, which thrives best in in situ mode and thus leading to the observation of parameters affecting the morphology of bulk heterjunction films. Since achieving information on the solution thermodynamics and relating this information to the drying kinetics were the main aspect of this thesis, proper methods had to be selected and combined. Hence, a novel drying chamber, which combines white light reflectometry, light scattering, photo luminescence and X-Ray scattering was introduced.