Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics
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| Postgraduate students Karyn Mutkins and Guojiang Tang working on manufacturing solar cells in the COPE cleanroom |
The Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics (COPE) was established at UQ in March 2007. COPE brings together chemists and physicists to investigate plastic (organic) materials that can be used as the active layers in a range of applications including solar cells, light-emitting diodes for displays and lighting, transistors, and sensors. The Centre, lead by Professors Paul Burn (Chemistry) and Paul Meredith (Physics), is located in state-of-the-art facilities in the Chemistry Building on the St Lucia Campus. The facilities enable materials synthesis and characterisation, with a Class 1000 clean room containing fabrication equipment for the manufacturing of prototype devices. With a suite of device testing capabilities this combination makes COPE one of the premier Centres in Australia in the area of organic optoelectronics.
A major focus of the research at COPE is the development of the next generation solar cells and we are exploring new materials and new device architectures in a strategy to improve efficiency and lifetimes. In addition to the Directors COPE has an exciting senior team of scientists including Dr Shih-Chun (Lawrence) Lo (Chemistry), Dr Ebinazar Namdas (Experimental physics), and Dr Ben Powell (Theoretical Physics).
