Organic Photovoltaics

Björn Lüssem studied electrical engineering at the RWTH Aachen (Germany) and the University of Bath and obtained his degree as Diplom-Ingenieur in 2003.He prepared his PhD thesis at the Research Center in Jülich, Germany in the field of molecular electronics. His thesis concentrates on Scanning-Tunnelling Microscopy of pure and mixed self-assembled monolayers and has been awarded theVDE-Promotionspreis and the Günther-Leibfried-Preis.After staying at the Materials Science Laboratory of Sony in Stuttgart from 2006-2008, he joined Prof.

Our research interests are focused on the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds with potential applications in the fields of pharmaceuticals and material sciences.  Nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur heterocyclic compounds are key building blocks in medicinally and biologically active compounds.  They are predominant among all types of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals products.  Heterocyclic compounds also have many industrial uses as components in dyes, antioxidants, copolymers, bases, and ligands.  Both conventional and microwave assisted synthetic techniques are adopted in our research.

The high-resolution x-ray scattering group headed by Dr. Kumar studies structure of new and novel liquid crystals (LC), LC phase transitions, and flow properties. His groups has applied x-ray reflectivity to the study of surfaces and novel non-rubbed alignment layers. His group also dabbles in small angle neutron scattering and heat capacity measurements. He has an ongoing applied effort on polymer dispersed ferroelectric smectic LC displays. In recent years, there have been several efforts to synthesize the long sought-after, achiral ferroelectric smectic phase.