| 1. |
- Goyenola, Cecilia, 1983-
(författare)
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Nanostructured carbon-based thin films : prediction and design
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Carbon-based thin films are a vast group of materials of great technological importance. Thanks to the different bonding options for carbon, a large variety of structures (from amorphous to nanostructured) can be achieved in the process of film synthesis. The structural diversity increases even more if carbon is combined with relatively small quantities of atoms of other elements. This results in a set of materials with many different interesting properties for a wide range of technological applications.This doctoral thesis is about nanostructured carbon-based thin films. In particular, the focus is set on theoretical modeling, prediction of structural features and design of sulfo carbide (CSx) and carbon fluoride (CFx) thin films.The theoretical approach follows the synthetic growth concept (SGC) which is based on the density functional theory. The SGC departure point is the fact that the nanostructured films of interest can be modeled as assemblies of low dimensional units (e.g., finite graphene-like model systems), similarly to modeling graphite as stacks of graphene sheets. Moreover, the SGC includes a description of the groups of atoms that act as building blocks (i.e., precursors) during film deposition, as well as their interaction with the growing film.This thesis consists of two main parts:Prediction: In this work, I show that nanostructured CSx thin films can be expected for sulfur contents up to 20 atomic % with structural characteristics that go from graphite-like to fullerene-like (FL). In the case of CFx thin films, a diversity of structures are predicted depending on the fluorine concentration. Short range ordered structures, such as FL structure, can be expected for low concentrations (up to 5 atomic %). For increasing fluorine concentration, diamond-like and polymeric structures should predominate. As a special case, I also studied the ternary system CSxFy. The calculations show that CSxFy thin films with nanostructured features should be possible to synthesize at low sulfur and fluorine concentrations and the structural characteristics can be described and explained in terms of the binaries CSx and CFx.Design: The carbon-based thin films predicted in this thesis were synthesized by magnetron sputtering. The results from my calculations regarding structure and composition, and analysis of precursors (availability and role during deposition process) were successfully combined with the experimental techniques in the quest of obtaining films with desired structural features and understanding their properties.
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| 2. |
- Jakobsson, Mattias, 1981-
(författare)
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Monte Carlo Studies of Charge Transport Below the Mobility Edge
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Charge transport below the mobility edge, where the charge carriers are hopping between localized electronic states, is the dominant charge transport mechanism in a wide range of disordered materials. This type of incoherent charge transport is fundamentally different from the coherent charge transport in ordered crystalline materials. With the advent of organic electronics, where small organic molecules or polymers replace traditional inorganic semiconductors, the interest for this type of hopping charge transport has increased greatly. The work documented in this thesis has been dedicated to the understanding of this charge transport below the mobility edge.While analytical solutions exist for the transport coefficients in several simplified models of hopping charge transport, no analytical solutions yet exist that can describe these coefficients in most real systems. Due to this, Monte Carlo simulations, sometimes described as ideal experiments performed by computers, have been extensively used in this work.A particularly interesting organic system is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Besides its overwhelming biological importance, DNA’s recognition and self-assembly properties have made it an interesting candidate as a molecular wire in the field of molecular electronics. In this work, it is shown that incoherent hopping and the Nobel prize-awarded Marcus theory can be used to describe the results of experimental studies on DNA. Furthermore, using this experimentally verified model, predictions of the bottlenecks in DNA conduction are made.The second part of this work concerns charge transport in conjugated polymers, the flagship of organic materials with respect to processability. It is shown that polaronic effects, accounted for by Marcus theory but not by the more commonly used Miller-Abrahams theory, can be very important for the charge transport process. A significant step is also taken in the modeling of the off-diagonal disorder in organic systems. By taking the geometry of the system from large-scale molecular dynamics simulations and calculating the electronic transfer integrals using Mulliken theory, the off-diagonal disorder is for the first time modeled directly from theory without the need for an assumed parametric random distribution.
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| 3. |
- Medeiros, Paulo V. C., 1985-
(författare)
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Electronic properties of complex interfaces and nanostructures
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates the structural and electronic properties of graphene, polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules, and other carbon-based materials, when interacting with metallic surfaces, as well as under the influence of different types of perturbations. Density functional theory, incorporating van der Waals interactions, has been employed.PAH molecules can, with gradual accuracy, be considered as approximations to an infinite graphene layer. A method to estimate the contributions to the binding energies and net charge transfers from different types of carbon atoms and CH groups in graphene- and PAH-metal systems has been generalized. In this extended method, the number and the nature of the functional groups is determined using a first-principles approach, rather than intuitively or through empirical considerations. Relationships between charge transfers, interface dipole moments and work functions in such systems are explored.Although the electronic structure of physisorbed graphene keeps most of the features of freestanding graphene, the use of large supercells in calculations makes it difficult to resolve the changes introduced in the band structures of such materials. In this thesis, this was the initial motivation for the development of a method to perform the Brillouin zone unfolding of band structures. This method, as initially developed, is shown to be of general use for any periodic structure, and is even further generalized – through the introduction of the unfolding density operator – to tackle the unfolding of the eigenvalues of any arbitrary operator, with both scalar as well as spinor eigenstates.A combined experimental and theoretical investigation of the self-assembly of a binary mixture of 4,9-diaminoperylene-quinone-3,10-diimine (DPDI) and 3,4,9,10-perylene-tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (PTCDA) molecules on Ag(111) is presented. The DFT calculations performed here allow for the investigation of the interplay between molecule-molecule and molecule-surface interactions in the network.Besides the main results mentioned above, this thesis also incorporates a study of silicon-metal nanostructures, as well as an investigation of the use of hybrid graphene-graphane structures as prototypes for atomically precise design in nanoelectronics.
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| 4. |
- Mozafari, Elham, 1983-
(författare)
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A Theoretical Study of Charge Transport in Molecular Crystals
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The main objective of this thesis is to provide a deeper understanding of the charge transport phenomena occuring in molecular crystals. The focus is on the stability and the dynamics of the polaron as the charge carrier.To achieve this goal, a series of numerical calculations are performed using the semi-emprical "Holstien-Peierls" model. The model considers both intra- (Holstein) and inter- (Peierls) molecular interactions, in particular the electron-phonon interactions.First, the stability of the polaron in an ordered two dimensional molecular lattice with an excess charge is studied using Resilient backPropagation, RPROP, algorithm. The stability is defined by the "polaron formation energy". This formation energy is obtained for a wide range of parameter sets including both intra- and inter-molecular electron-phonon coupling strengths and their vibrational frequencies, transfer intergral and electric field. We found that the polaron formation energies lying in the range of 50-100 meV are more interesting for our studies.The second step to cover is the dynamical behaviour of the polaron. Using the stable polaron solutions acheived in the first step, an electric field is applied as an external force, pushing the charge to move. We observed that the polaron remains stable and moves with a constant velocity for only a limited range of parameter sets. Finally, the impact of disorder and temperature on the charge dynamics is considered. Adding disorder to the system will result in a more restricted parameter set space for which the polaron is dynamically stable and mobile.Temperature is included in the Newtonian equations of motion via a random force. We observed that the polaron remains localized and moves with a diffusive behaviour up to a certain temperature. If the temperature increases to values above this critical temperature, the localized polaron becomes delocalized.All this research work is coded in MATLAB software , allowing us to run the calculations, test and validate our results.
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| 5. |
- Mozafari, Elham, 1983-
(författare)
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Theoretical Description of the Electron-Lattice Interaction in Molecular and Magnetic Crystals
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Electron-lattice interactions are often considered not to play a major role in material's properties as they are assumed to be small, the second-order effects. However, this study shows the importance of taking these effects into account in the simulations. My results demonstrate the impact of the electron-lattice interaction on the physics of the material and our understanding from it. One way to study these effects is to add them as perturbations to the unperturbed Hamiltonians in numerical simulations. The main objective of this thesis is to study electron-lattice interactions in molecular and magnetic crystals. It is devoted to developing numerical techniques considering model Hamiltonians and first-principles calculations to include the effect of lattice vibrations in the simulations of the above mentioned classes of materials.In particular, I study the effect of adding the non-local electron-phonon coupling on top of the Holstein Hamiltonian to study the polaron stability and polaron dynamics in molecular crystals. The numerical calculations are based on the semi-empirical Holstein-Peierls model in which both intra (Holstein) and inter (Peierls) molecular electron-phonon interactions are taken into account. I study the effect of different parameters including intra and intermolecular electron-phonon coupling strengths and their vibrational frequencies, the transfer integral and the electric field on polaron stability. I found that in an ordered two dimensional molecular lattice the polaron is stable for only a limited range of parameter sets with the polaron formation energies lying in the range between 50 to 100 meV. Using the stable polaron solutions, I applied an electric field to the system and I observed that the polaron is dynamically stable and mobile for only a limited set of parameters. Adding disorder to the system will result in even more restricted parameter set space for which the polaron is stable and moves adiabatically with a constant velocity. In order to study the effect of temperature on polaron dynamics, I include a random force in Newtonian equations of motion in a one dimensional molecular lattice. I found that there is a critical temperature above which the polaron destabilizes and becomes delocalized.Moreover, I study the role of lattice vibrations coupled to magnetic degrees of freedom in finite temperature paramagnetic state of magnetic materials. Calculating the properties of paramagnetic materials at elevated temperatures is a cumbersome task. In this thesis, I present a new method which allows us to couple lattice vibrations and magnetic disorder above the magnetic transition temperature and treat them on the same footing. The method is based on the combination of disordered local moments model and ab initio molecular dynamics (DLM-MD). I employ the method to study different physical properties of some model systems such as CrN and NiO in which the interaction between the magnetic and lattice degrees of freedom is very strong making them very good candidates for such a study.I calculate the formation energies and study the effect of nitrogen defects on the electronic structure of paramagnetic CrN at high temperatures. Using this method I also study the temperature dependent elastic properties of paramagnetic CrN. The results highlight the importance of taking into account the magnetic excitations and lattice vibrations in the studies of magnetic materials at finite temperatures. A combination of DLM-MD with another numerical technique namely temperature dependent effective potential (TDEP) method is used to study the vibrational free energy and phase stability of CrN. We found that the combination of magnetic and vibrational contributions to the free energy shifts down the phase boundary between the cubic paramagnetic and orthorhombic antiferromagnetic phases of CrN towards the experimental value.I used the stress-strain relation to study the temperature-dependent elastic properties of paramagnetic materials within DLM-MD with CrN as my model system. The results from a combinimation of DLM-MD with another newly developed method, symmetry imposed force constants (SIFC) in conjunction with TDEP is also presented as comparison to DLM-MD results.I also apply DLM-MD method to study the electronic structure of NiO in its paramagnetic state at finite temperatures. I found that lattice vibrations have a prominent impact on the electronic structure of paramagnetic NiO at high temperatures and should be included for the proper description of the density of states.In summary, I believe that the proposed techniques give reliable results and allow us to include the effects from electron-lattice interaction in simulations of materials.
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| 6. |
- Volpi, Riccardo
(författare)
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Charge Transport Simulations for Organic Electronics : A Kinetic Monte Carlo Approach
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis we focus on the modelling and simulation of organic electronic devices, investigating their structural and electronic properties. Organic devices have attracted great interest for their innovative properties, but their functioning still represent a theoretical and technological challenge. They are composed by one or more organic materials depending on the particular application. The morphology of organic devices in the single phase or at the interface is known to strongly determine mobility and efficiency of the devices. The structural disorder is studied through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Marcus formula is used to calculate the hopping rate of the charge carriers and the model developed is tested by simulations in a Kinetic Monte Carlo scheme. The dependence of the transfer integrals on the relative molecular orientation is achieved through a weighted Mulliken formula or through a dimer projection approach using the semi-empirical Hartree Fock method ZINDO. Electrostatic effects, have been included through atomic charges and atomic polarizabilities, calculated at the B3LYP level of theory. The inclusion of electrostatic effects has been shown (through simulations in 4PV and C60) to be crucial to obtain a good qualitative agreement with experiments, for both mobility field and temperature dependence in the single phase. In particular the external reorganization energy, calculated through the polarization of the environment, has been shown to have a great impact on the conduction, shifting the inverse Marcus region and helping CT state separation at the interface (between C60 and anthracene).
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| 7. |
- Hultell (Andersson), Magnus, 1978-
(författare)
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Electron-Lattice Dynamics in pi-Conjugated Systems
- 2007
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this thesis we explore in particular the dynamics of a special type of quasi-particle in pi-conjugated materials termed polaron, the origin of which is intimately related to the strong interactions between the electronic and the vibrational degrees of freedom within these systems. In order to conduct such studies with the particular focus of each appended paper, we simultaneously solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and the lattice equation of motion with a three-dimensional extension of the famous Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model Hamiltonian. In particular, we demonstrate in Paper I the applicability of the method to model transport dynamics in molecular crystals in a region were neither band theory nor perturbative treatments such as the Holstein model and extended Marcus theory apply. In Paper II we expand the model Hamiltonian to treat the revolution of phenylene rings around the sigma-bonds and demonstrate the great impact of stochastic ring torsion on the intra-chain mobility in conjugated polymers using poly[phenylene vinylene] (PPV) as a model system. Finally, in Paper III we go beyond the original purpose of the methodology and utilize its great flexibility to study radiationless relaxations of hot excitons.
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| 8. |
- Hultell (Andersson), Magnus, 1978-
(författare)
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Electron-lattice dynamics in π-conjugated systems
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The work presented in this thesis concerns the dynamics in π-conjugated hydrocarbon systems. Due to the molecular bonding structure of these systems there exists a coupling between the electronic system and the phonons of the lattice. If this interaction, which is referred to as the electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling, is sufficiently strong it may cause externally introduced charge carriers to self-localize in a polarization cloud of lattice distortions. These quasi-particles are, if singly charged, termed polarons, the localization length of which, aside from the e-ph coupling strength, also depend upon the structural and energetic disorder of the system. In disordered systems localization is strong and transport is facilitated by nonadiabatic hopping of charge carriers from one localized state to the next, whereas in well-ordered systems, where extended states are formed, adiabatic transport models apply.Despite great academic efforts a unified model for charge transport in π-conjugated systems is still lacking and further investigations are necessary to uncover the basic physics at hand in these systems. The call for such efforts has been the main guidelines for the work presented in this thesis and are related to the topics of papers I-IV. In order to capture the coupled electron-lattice dynamics, we use a methodological approach where we obtain the time-dependence of the electronic degrees of freedom from the solutions to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and determine the ionic motion in the evolving charge density distribution by simultaneously solving the lattice equation of motion within the potential field of the ions. The Hamiltonian used to describe the system is derived from an extension of the famous Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model extended to three-dimensional systems.In papers I-III we explore the impact of phenylene ring torsion on delocalization and transport properties in poly(para-phenylene vinylene) (PPV). The physics that we are particularly interested in relates to the reduced electron transfer integral strength across the interconnection between the phenylene rings and the vinylene groups upon ring torsion. Keeping this in mind, we demonstrate in paper I the impact of static ring torsion on intrachain mobility and provide a detailed analysis of the influence of the potential barriers (due to consecutive ring torsion) on the nature of charge carrier propagation. In paper II we extend our initial approach to include also the dynamics of ring torsion. We show that without any externally applied electric field, this type of dynamics is the dominant property controlling intrachain propagation, but that when an external electric field is applied, charge carriers may traverse the potential barriers through a process that involves nonadiabatic effects and a temporary delocalization of the polaron state. Finally, in paper III we study the impact of the lattice dynamics on the electron localization properties in PPV and show that the phenylene ring torsion modes couples strongly to the electronic wave function which gives rise to electron localization at room temperature.In papers IV and V we focus on the dynamics of molecular crystals using a stack of pentacene molecules in the single crystal configuration as a model system, but study, in paper IV, the transport as a function of the intermolecular interaction strength, J. We observe a smooth transition from a nonadiabatic to an adiabatic polaron drift process over the regime 20<J<120 meV. For intermolecular interaction strengths above J≈120 meV the polaron is no longer stable and transport becomes band-like. In paper V, finally, we study the internal conversion processes in these systems, which is the dominant relaxation channel from higher lying states. This process involves the transfer of energy from the electronic system to the lattice. Our results show that this process is strongly nonadiabatic and that the relaxation time associated with large energy excitations is limited by transitions made between states of different bands.
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| 9. |
- Nilsing, Mattias, 1975-
(författare)
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Computational Investigation of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Interfaces between semiconductors and adsorbed molecules form a central area of research in surface science, occurring in many different contexts. One such application is the so-called Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) where the nanostructured dye-semiconductor interface is of special interest, as this is where the most important ultrafast electron transfer process takes place. In this thesis, structural and electronic aspects of these interfaces have been studied theoretically using quantum chemical computations applied to realistic dye-semiconductor systems. Periodic boundary conditions and large cluster models have been employed together with hybrid HF-DFT functionals in the modeling of nanostructured titanium dioxide. A study of the adsorption of a pyridine molecule via phosphonic and carboxylic acid anchor groups to an anatase (101) surface showed that the choice of anchor group affects the strength of the bindings as well as the electronic interaction at the dye-TiO2 interface. The calculated interfacial electronic coupling was found to be stronger for carboxylic acid than for phosphonic acid, while phosphonic acid binds significantly stronger than carboxylic acid to the TiO2 surface. Atomistic and electronic structure of realistic dye-semiconductor interfaces were reported for RuII-bis-terpyridine dyes on a large anatase TiO2 cluster and perylene dyes on a periodic rutile (110) TiO2 surface. The results show strong influence of anchor and inserted spacer groups on adsorption and electronic properties. Also in these cases, the phosphonic acid anchor group was found to bind the dyes significantly stronger to the surface than the carboxylic acid anchor, while the interfacial electronic coupling was stronger for the carboxylic anchor. The estimated electron injection times were twice as fast for the carboxylic anchor compared to the phosphonic anchor. Moreover, the electronic coupling was affected by the choice of spacer group, where unsaturated spacer groups were found to mediate electron transfer more efficiently than saturated ones.
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| 10. |
- Unge, Mikael, 1977-
(författare)
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Molecular Electronics : A Theoretical Study of Electronic Structure of Bulk and Interfaces
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with theoretical studies of the electronic structure of molecules used in the context of molecular electronics. Both studies with model Hamiltonians and first principle calculations have been performed. The materials studied include molecular crystals of pentacene and DNA, which are used as active material in field-effect transistors and as tentative molecular wires, respectively. The molecular magnet compound TCNE and surface modification by means of chemisorption of TDAE on gold are also studied.Molecular crystals of pentacene are reported to have the highest field-effect mobility values for organic thin film field-effect transistors. The conduction process in field-effect transistors applications occurs in a single layer of the molecular crystal. Hence, in studies of transport properties molecular crystals of pentacene can be considered as a two dimensional system. An open question of these system is if the charge transport is bandlike or if as a result of disorder is a hopping process. We address this question in two of the included papers, paper I and paper II.The conducting properties of DNA are of interest for a broad scientific community. Biologist for understanding of oxidatively damaged DNA and physicist and the electronics community for use as a molecular wire. Some reports on the subject classifies DNA as a conductor while other report insulating behavior. The outcome of the investigations are heavily dependent on the type of DNA being studied, clearly there is a big difference between the natural and more or less random sequence in, e.g., λ-DNA and the highly ordered syntethic poly(G)-poly(C) DNA. It has been suggested that long-range correlation would yield delocalized states, i.e., bandlike transport, in natural DNA, especially in the human chromosome 22. In paper III we show that this is not the case. In general our results show that DNA containing an approximately equal amount of the four basis is an insulator in a static picture.An emerging research field is spintronics. In spintronic devices the spin of the charge carrier is as important as the charge. One can envision a device where spin alone is the carrier of information. In realizing spintronic devices, materials that are both magnetic and semiconducting are needed. Systems that exhibit both these properties are organic-based magnets. In paper IV the electronic structure of the molecular magnet compound TCNE is studied, both experimentally and theoretically.The injection of carriers from metal contacts to organic semiconductors is central to the performance of organic based devices. The interface between the metal contact and the organic material has been pointed out to be one of the device parameters that most significantly influences the device performance. This relates to the process of injection of charge carriers in to the organic material. In some contact and organic material combinations the energy barrier for charge injection can be very high. The barrier can be reduced by modify the interface dipole, this is achieved by a monolayer of adsorbed molecules at the interface. The molecule TDAE chemisorbed on gold is studied in paper V.
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