Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MMAMA (Microwave Microscopy for Advanced and Efficient Materials Analysis and Production)

Teaser

Products which require complicated material systems and nanoscale structural organization, e.g. third-generation solar cells, are often difficult to develop. This is because electronic properties of bulk semiconductors are often masked or at least strongly superimposed by...

Summary

Products which require complicated material systems and nanoscale structural organization, e.g. third-generation solar cells, are often difficult to develop. This is because electronic properties of bulk semiconductors are often masked or at least strongly superimposed by material interface properties. Additionally these interface properties are also complex and thus make product design difficult.
MMAMA aims at solving this problem by offering a nanoscale characterization platform for the European manufacturers of coatings, photovoltaic cells, and semi-conductor circuits. It is proposed to use a combination of scanning microwave microscopes, dielectric resonators, and simulation to measure the material and interface properties of complicated material systems and nanostructures. A metrological system of cross-checks between different instruments, models and simulations with associated error bars is indispensable for obtaining trustworthy results.
Scanning microwave measurements will be directly used for three-dimensional characterization of electrical properties of nanostructured semiconductors used in organic and hybrid photovoltaic cells. The objective is to accelerate the development of high efficiency cells and to have measures to predict performances in early stages of prototype production. Where process monitoring of materials with nanostructures is necessary, a dielectric resonator is used to translate insights from scanning microwave microscope (SMM) measurements to fabrication environments. Such dielectric resonators could be directly integrated in production lines for monitoring thin film deposition processes.
An open innovation environment will make the uptake of the results easier for European industry. A database containing exemplary measurement datasets of scanning microwave microscopes will be available in calibrated and raw versions. Simulation results of tip-semiconductor interactions will be made available on the EMMC Modeling Market Place.

Work performed

Development of SMM technology on electrical resolution, bandwidth, and microwave probes
Fundamental extensions to the existing SMM technology were addressed. Three SMM at laboratory level were investigated: a wideband GHz open air AFM for kHz – 20 GHz electrical measurements, mm-wave SMM integrated in SEM and open air vertical tuning-fork based SMM. This work gathers development of shielded probes, calibration kits and dedicated complex impedance measurement workflow.
Application oriented SMM and development of new calibration routines
The SMM was further developed including large scan range extension towards 500 x 500µm. Calibration routines for complex impedance were developed, both for the SMM and the combined SMM/SEM. RF electronic circuitry models were established for the SMM.
Electromagnetic 3D models and software modules
From the beginning, 3 user cases are defined to represent most frequent SMM setups. For those, modelling work have been performed and they were simulated using developed full-Maxwell electromagnetics solvers (FEM- and FDTD-based solvers) for different samples such as dielectrics and metals. In order to extend the scope of the solver by including semiconductor based samples, a semiconductor physics solver has been worked on, which will be coupled to electromagnetic solver. Moreover, fine tuning and calibration work for electromagnetic solvers are progressing in order to match the simulation results obtained from FDTD and FEM quantitatively as well. In parallel, modelling problems of industrial relevance are being assembled from the project partners.
Fabrication and characterization of reference materials and structures for validation of SMM technologies at the lab scale.
Key materials and structures were investigated: organic compounds for PV applications, C-based composites for batteries and ion-implanted substrates. The characterization of device was performed. The SMM/microwave analysis technologies on corresponding structures were validated.
Demonstration of macro-scale microwave characterisation techniques for in-line pilot production
The partners are working on the definition of the specifications of macro-scale resonator and coaxial probe integration into industrial environments (list of materials, production process, connection of the measurements…). They started also to study the system integration of macro-scale microwave techniques into both sheet-to-sheet and roll-to-roll processes.
Development of standard operating procedures and implementation of open access environment
The open innovation environment is now fully operational including a public repository, stakeholder repository for online collaboration with stakeholders, a repository for project partners and a Zenodo community. A first draft of SOPs has been written.
Communication, dissemination and exploitation
A stakeholder analysis has been carried out and fruitful collaboration with the different stakeholder groups –including the MMAMA sister projects- is ongoing. Several communication and dissemination activities including papers and conference presentations have been carried out and are documented in the MMAMA website and Zenodo sites. A throughout update of exploitation / Business plans was carried out at the end of the period.

Final results

For nanoscale characterization tolls and techniques, SMM planar shielded probes operating up to 110GHz are achieved as well as the integration of the SMM in a SEM. This unique near-field microscope reaches topographic AFM imaging and sensitivity / stability properties comparable to commercially available SMM. A wideband frequency AFM for kHz – 20 GHz electrical measurements has been implemented. With this instrument in SMM mode, complex impedance measurement workflow has been successfully achieved.
The stitching procedure was developed and fully tested on various samples, which allows increased image sizes. The final implementation shows a 25x increase in image size. SMM calibration procedures were integrated into a GUI to allow proper inclusion into the SMM measurement workflow and SMM software. A GUI was established for semiconductor dopant profiling as well as materials complex impedance.
For the macroscale characterization, a new SPDR has been developed, operating at 10GHz and mounted in a 2D scanner dedicated to large scale sample measurements. This set-up was associated with a new FieldFox.
In the field of materials for battery and supercapacitors electrodes, several sets of different composite materials were produced and spread to partners in charge of characterization as well as batches of carbon-based composites (graphene-based electrodes).
In the field of OPV devices, several organic semiconducting materials for the photoactive layer are investigated to obtain the best photoelectric conversion efficiency and being compatible with industrial process. Several types of materials were investigated by different nano- and macro-scale measurements techniques.
Modelling Data fiches describe three User Cases representative of the three measurement techniques considered in the project: SMM, dielectric resonator, and open-ended coax. Several modelling approaches are able to treat these UCs with results in agreement with experiments.
The data management plan reflects the requirements of the project and provides guidance for handling the data of the project; the open innovation environment has been set up.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.mmama.eu/.