With a Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities :Instrument Development (CRIF:ID) award, Professor Oliver Monti in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Arizona will develop a sensitive scanning photoionization microscope to investigate the electronic structure of heterogeneous interfaces in organic photovoltaic cells. The instrument consists of a Ti:Sapphire laser, microscope, and a new photoelectron detector, in which ultraviolet radiation (266 nm) from a frequency tripled Ti:Sapphire laser (800 nm) is used for multiphoton photoionization in 6-10 eV range. Spatially resolved fluorescence and photoelectron imaging would result from scanning the sample over the stationary focused uv beam.
The proposed scanning photoionization microscope is suitable for valence band and photoemission spectroscopy enabling the collection of spatially resolved chemical and electronic information on a submicron length-scale. Important applications include the examination of the valence band structure of organophotovoltaic (OPV) systems, organic/semiconductor interfaces, and potentially single nanoparticles. This should contribute to the basic understanding of molecular processes in organic materials, ultimately improving the engineering of more efficient solar cells.
