From April to June 2017 I had the chance to work for 3 months with the Salleo Research Group at Stanford University. The research visit was financed in part by the cfaed INSPIRE grant and in part by the Graduate Academy through a travel grant for short-term research stays abroad. During my time in the group I was trying to shed light on the charge carrier transport in thin films of semiconducting polymers synthesized as part of the Organic/Polymer Path in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research.  

The main reason for my visit of the group was the application of charge-modulation spectroscopy to our polymers. This technique has only been established in a few research groups around the world and gives information about the degree of freedom charge carriers have close to the semiconductor/dielectric interface based on the optical absorption of the carriers. The results will help us optimizing the device performance of field-effect transistors.

Furthermore, right next to Stanford University is the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, a Department of Energy user facility for very bright electromagnetic radiation. During my 3 months I was lucky enough to get multiple days and nights at the facility to investigate the film structure of our materials by x-ray scattering techniques. This allows us to correlate the structural and electronic properties of our semiconducting polymers.