Fengling Zhang

Perovskite & Organic devices

Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

Email: fengling.zhang@liu.se

Biography

Fengling  Zhang  received  her  PhD  and  MS  degree  in  1998  and  1985  from Changchun Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), respectively. She did postdoc in  Osaka University, Japan from October 1998 to January 2000. Then she joined Prof. Olle Inganäs’   group as a postdoc at LiU where she  became an associate professor in 2008 and was promoted to a professor in 2014.
Prof. Zhang started research on organic solar ells since she joined LiU as a postdoc in year 2000. She is one of pioneers in the field of organic solar cells. She made several pioneer works. Her research interest covers Solution processed Organic solar cells/photodetectors, Device physics of non-fullerene organic solar cells; Organic photodetectors for bio-sensing applications; MXene and polymer super-capacitors; Solution processed solar-powered organic electrochromic devices; Integrated organic solar cells with super-capacitors (portable power units) and semitransparent organic solar cells.

She  authored  and  co-authored  180  journal articles  with  Times Cited  more than 14000,  Hindex 64 (ResearcherID: AAB-4121-2020). She  was  nominated  as  one  of  World's  Most Influential Scientific Minds by Thomson Reuters in Materials Science in  2014, 2015 and 2016. She was nominated as one of Global highly cited researchers by Clarivate in Cross-field in 2018. She has broad international collaborations, especially with Chinese universities   and institutes, such as  Tsinghua University;  Zhejiang University;  Chinese University of Hong Kong; Beihang University; Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, CAS; Institute of Chemistry, CAS; etc.. She has been a guest professor in Jinan University (Guangzhou) and Tianjing University fo Tehnology.

Abstract for Presentation

Organic devices for energy conversion and storage

Electricity is a main kind of energy for our daily life. Our main research activity is solution  processed  Polymer/organic  solar  cells,  which  can  convert  the  sunlight  into electricity. Organic solar cells can be made on plastic substrates with traditional printing techniques. They can be flexible and transparent. Therefore, they can be installed on curved surfaces  and windows.  In the past 21 years, we have been working on both optimizing  processing  of  fullerene/non-fullerene  organic  solar  cells  and  studying device physics to deepen understand on the mechanism of devices for enhancing the power conversion efficiency. (1)

We all know that the Sunlight varies with time, season, and location on the earth. To extend  the  application  of  organic  solar  cells,  storing  electricity  converted  from  the sunlight is necessary. Super-capacitors are components, which can store electricity. We developed hybrid super-capacitors based on MXene and polymers. Funded by Swedish research council we work also on integrated organic solar cells with super-capacitors (Photo-capacitors)  as  portable  power  units  to  charge  low  power  consumption electronics/IoT. (2)

Currently, our main activity is studying drying process of organic blends to understand the  morphology  formation  from  solutions  to  solid  films  and  the  correlation  with performance of devices. We also work on understanding the sources of energy losses and transport limitations in organic solar cells collaborated with several Chinese leading groups in the field of organic solar cells.

Reference

[1] N. Yao et al, ACS Appl. Energy Mater. 2021, 4, 14335, https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.1c03017.

[2] L. Qin et al, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020, 8, 5467, DOI: 10.1039/d0ta00687d.