Chapter 278: The boasting phenomenon of the industry

On Wednesday, Chen Wanqing was still doing synthesis in Zhangjiang. Her molecular synthesis process was not very smooth, and the reaction of the low-temperature n-butyllithium hydrogen extraction failed once, so it took longer than expected.
Han Jiaying and Wu Shengnan had completed their experiments the day before, so they stayed in Handan Laboratory today.
The school girl got the final polymerized product. Judging by the precipitation state of the polymer in the poor solvent methanol, the probability is that the synthesis is successful and the molecular weight is not low.
She obtained a total of three polymer donor materials, all based on FTAZ units, named P-BDTO-FTAZ, P-BDTS-FTAZ, P-BDTT-FTAZ, and they used alkoxy side chains and alkylthio groups. The BDT unit and FTAZ unit of the side chain and alkylthiophene side chain are not modified.
These new molecules were named H11, H12, and H13 by her. Among them, "H" is the abbreviation of the surname, the first "1" represents the first generation, and the following "123" is the number. If you continue to develop in the future, the name will be H21, H33, etc...
According to her previous assumptions, Wu Shengnan tried to prepare perovskite quantum dots by thermal injection method, but it still did not go well, and the result was a turbid reaction product. However, she successfully synthesized two conjugated polymers P() and P (TCEC), therefore, the synthesis of quantum dots did not continue.
Different researchers have different naming habits for the materials they develop. For example, Wu Shengnan prefers to use parentheses. In Wei Xingsi's research group, Xu Qiu and others prefer to use the horizontal bar "-".
Speaking of this horizontal bar, the "-" in the article is not directly typed out with the minus sign on the keyboard, but inserted in the special symbol column in WORD. The horizontal bar in this special symbol is stronger than normal The minus sign is slightly longer, and there is more than one kind.
To say how Xu Qiu learned about it, it all depends on Teacher Wei's dedication to details, but he personally feels that this is the same as the "Four Ways of Fennel Bean", and it does not have much practical meaning.
At 9:30 in the morning, Han Jiaying went to the spin-coating glove box to check the solution prepared yesterday.
There are a total of nine groups, based on her newly synthesized three donors and three receptors, each paired by three times three.
Among them, the three receptors include two previously developed non-fullerene receptors, the third-generation B4T-8 series 3D-PDI molecules of Xuemei, and the IDT-ICIN molecules of Xuemei, as well as fullerene derivatives. The acceptor PC[70]BM was used as the standard.
Because the polymerized products are all extracted by chloroform, the solubility is very good, and there are no large particles of insoluble matter and solid matter hanging on the wall.
After judging that the solution was normal, the school girl began to prepare the zinc oxide substrate.
Wu Shengnan approached Xu Qiu and asked, "Can you teach me to test TRPL?"
Xu Qiu wrote the paper for two days in a row before, and wanted to change his taste and experiment, so he directly agreed: "Yes, when will it be tested."
"Now, I have all the samples ready." Wu Shengnan obviously came prepared, and she fictitiously pointed to the direction of the experimental platform, on which there was a petri dish containing samples.
"Okay." Xu Qiu nodded. Although the integrating sphere hasn't arrived, the regular TRPL can still be tested.
The two of them put on their gloves, took samples and tweezers, and entered 218 together, greeted Teacher Wei, turned on the instrument, and started testing.
Xu Qiu demonstrated once, described the entire operation process, and then watched Wu Shengnan operate it twice.
There were no mistakes, and the postdoctoral sisters still had basic scientific research literacy.
After the teaching, Xu Qiu did not participate in the remaining tests for Wu Shengnan.
He went straight back to 216, and heard the call from Han Jiaying from a distance: "Brother, help me apply the effective layer~"
"Okay—" Xu Qiu replied in the air, then walked straight into the laboratory, putting on his lab coat, and asked casually: "How many devices are you going to make?"
In the process of device preparation, the most critical step is the spin coating of the effective layer. In the laboratory organic trio, Xu Qiu thinks he is the strongest in terms of spin coating skills. This is why he took the initiative to prepare the device. .
"A total of eighteen tablets, nine sets of solutions, two of each prepared according to the previous optimal conditions," Han Jiaying paused, adding: "I have prepared a total of 20 zinc oxide substrates. It should be enough."
"No problem." Xu Qiu said with confidence, 18 out of 20, which means that as long as the yield rate is 90%, it is not difficult for him.
Clean the glove box atmosphere, start spin coating, and wipe the tablet with chloroform solvent simultaneously.
It took half an hour to obtain a total of eighteen substrates with uniform film coating, with zero errors.
Since none of these systems need to be annealed, Xu Qiu directly transferred them to the evaporation chamber and began to vacuum.
This time, Xu Qiu didn't put the new materials into Simulation Lab II for optimization, mainly because it was unnecessary. The results were basically predictable, and there was no need to waste points.
The points are spent on the new non-fullerene receptor developed by the school sister, and the benefits will be higher.
After lunch, Xu Qiu continued to write the introduction part of the graduation project.
Because his four works are mainly aimed at the traditional fullerene system of polymer donor materials, the non-fullerene review he published earlier cannot be directly translated as an introduction.
However, you cannot translate your own, just translate other people's.
Xu Qiu found a few big reviews published by his peers on AM, EES and on, plus his own ACSEL review, a total of four, as reference materials.
In fact, based on Xu Qiu's current understanding of the field of organic photovoltaics, this part of the introduction does not refer to the literature. It is not impossible to write in his own words, but it is more troublesome on the one hand, and there may be omissions on the other.
The introduction itself is to gather the best of hundreds of families. Since you have decided to create a high-quality graduation thesis, it is natural to deal with every detail.
In the evening, Han Jiaying got the test data of these devices.
Among the nine systems, the best system is the system, with the highest efficiency reaching 6.4%, which exceeds the highest performance value of the IDT-ICIN system before the school sister, but the improvement is not significant.
Although it is only a preliminary result, there is room for further improvement, such as reaching 7%, but it is still very difficult to count on the 10% efficiency of the "Nature·Materials" article.
This result, on the one hand, shows that the direction of this donor optimization is correct;
On the other hand, it also confirms Xu Qiu’s previous speculation that the current combination of wide band gap donor and narrow band gap receptors can only be icing on the cake with a high probability of optimizing donor materials, that is, a slight improvement on the original basis. The performance of the device is greatly improved, and the main thing is to tap the potential of the receptor material.
In any case, another article can be published based on the current situation.
Once you have your own system and have a first-mover advantage, it is not difficult to write articles that are one-stop, two-region or even weaker.
For example, for this job, at least a weak one-zone article such as JMCA, CM, etc., if you are lucky, you may also have a chance to publish a medium-level one-zone article such as AM sub-journals and AFM.
However, after the first batch of these articles were published, others learned of the "ICIN" unit, and the first mover advantage was relatively weak. After all, other peers would follow suit and imitate.
If you can't maintain the lead all the way, good articles will be divided among others.
This is a test of luck and scientific research capabilities.
On Thursday, the senior sister was still doing synthesis in Zhangjiang.
Xu Qiu helped the school girl apply the effective layer again, and also taught Wu Shengnan to deal with the TRPL data tested yesterday.
After arranging the two of them, Xu Qiu continued to write the introduction.
Working until the evening, the introduction was finally completed. He wrote a total of 20 pages, and the total number of pages of the paper reached 92 pages.
There are six sections in the introduction, among which:
The first section is the introduction, mainly about why this graduation project is to be done.
Xu Qiu wrote three paragraphs in a progressive manner, respectively describing "Why solar cells should be developed", "Current status and problems in the field of solar cells", and "Developing organic solar cells is one of the ways to solve the problem. ".
In the first paragraph, Xu Qiu directly translated the statement in his review:

Humanity’s demand for energy continues to increase, while traditional fossil energy sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas are increasingly depleted and cause a lot of pollution to the environment. Therefore, looking for various new energy sources, especially clean and renewable energy, is the most important thing facing society today. One of the problems. Among many renewable energy sources, solar energy is generally considered to be an effective way to solve the global energy demand problem because it is pollution-free and can be used unlimitedly, but the current utilization rate is very limited."
In the second paragraph, Xu Qiu first described the status of the entire solar cell field: "The mainstream products of commercialized solar cells are traditional silicon-based solar cells, including monocrystalline silicon, polycrystalline silicon and some thin-film silicon solar cells..."
Then the conversation changed: "However, traditional silicon-based batteries also face many problems to be solved. For example, although monocrystalline silicon batteries have high photoelectric conversion efficiency, they require high purity of silicon, complex processes, large amounts of materials, and production costs. Higher defects..."
This paragraph mainly translated the big review. They talked in great detail. After all, the article has more than 60 pages. A review is worth the thickness of a master's thesis.
Finally, the third paragraph, the second paragraph, leads to the protagonist of the graduation project "organic solar cell field", focusing on the advantages of organic photovoltaics, including "lightweight, low cost, strong selectivity, simple preparation, and good solution Processability, and capable of roll-to-roll printing onto large-area flexible substrates...".
In short, one sentence is over.
This can be regarded as a common phenomenon in the scientific research circle. Practitioners are all talking about how good their field is, but think about it carefully, if it is really so good, the entire industry would have been industrialized long ago, and it is impossible to stay in the laboratory. stage.
However, if you think about it from another angle, this kind of "braggering" is actually necessary.
If even practitioners in related fields are not optimistic about their fields, the entire industry will fall into a pessimistic atmosphere, and it is almost impossible to continue to develop.
Just as "the highest level of lies is to cheat even oneself", for this cutting-edge field that attempts to break the bottleneck of existing human technology, the front is a fog, and the beliefs of practitioners are very important.
Only by persisting forward can we have the opportunity to dispel the fog.
The second section is "Basic Introduction to Organic Solar Cells", including "Photoelectric Conversion Mechanism of Organic Solar Cells", "Performance Characterization of Organic Solar Cells", "Basic Structure of Bulk Heterojunction Monolayer Photovoltaic Devices". This part is mainly for reference That big review.
The number of references has begun to skyrocket, because when citing, it must be specifically quoted to the original literature. That is to say, although some views are seen from the review, but these views themselves are reviewed by others and must be cited from the review. Find the original document and cite it again.
In addition, Xu Qiu stole four pictures from the review in this part, and directly posted them in the graduation project, and indicated the source of the references in the legends of all pictures.
To exchange good books, follow the vx public account. [Book Friends Base Camp]. Pay attention now and receive cash red envelopes!
The pictures are all the original pictures he found from the original documents. In fact, it is also possible to take a screenshot directly from the PDF, but the resolution will be reduced, and it may be discovered by Teacher Wei's eyes.
The third section is "Polymer Donor Materials for Organic Solar Cells", including polymer donors synthesized from various types of donor structural units. Xu Qiu mainly referred to that EES review.
This part is relatively unfamiliar to Xu Qiu.
Before reading this review, when Xu Qiu first started in the industry, he was ignorant at that time, and he passed through it like a horse and flower, and he didn't get much gain.
Now I have read it carefully again and transformed it into his graduation project. Xu Qiu has gained a lot, adding a lot of ideas and inspiration for the design of donor molecular structure.
The field of organic photovoltaics is an old field for more than 20 years. When Xu Qiu entered the industry, this field was already fully developed.
For example, the PCE10 he got, or PTB7-TH, was actually a product developed through seven generations.
For another example, the evolution process of D and A units in donor materials, from the early fluorene units and thiophene units, to later gradually enriched.
These former artificial wheels ~EbookFREE.me~ can be used flexibly in their own systems in the future.
The fourth section is "Acceptor materials for organic solar cells", including traditional fullerene derivatives and non-fullerene acceptors that have emerged in recent years.
In addition to the PCBM series, there are actually many fullerene derivatives, such as ICBA, Bis-PCBM, etc., but PC[60]BM and PC[70]BM are the most commonly used. Xu Qiu mainly refers to the AM article Summary.
As for the non-fullerene part, Xu Qiu simply took some content from his review without describing it in detail. After all, none of his four work has anything to do with non-fullerene.
The fifth section is "device performance optimization", including three parts, one is "effective layer morphology control", there are solvent additives, thermal annealing, solvent annealing and other methods, and the second is "interface engineering", which is mainly aimed at Modification of the transmission layer, the last is "device structure optimization", including both positive and inverted device structures.
The sixth section "Project proposal and research ideas" first echoes the introduction of the first section, and repeats again why this graduation project is made, and then briefly describes the main content of each chapter separately, that is, each chapter The summary of this article is condensed and put here.