The Photophysics Unit gives support to the basic and applied research on light induced physicochemical processes, such as luminescence, electron transfer and energy transfer, in solution and solid-state samples.

The equipment is used for characterising fundamental processes related to the formation of chemical intermediates (excited states) in optical active molecules or materials:

• Steady-state photophysical characterization of singlet and triplet emitters in solution and solid state.
• Excited state emission lifetime of singlet and triplet emitters in solution and solid state.
• Steady-state photophysical characterisation of photoluminescence and electroluminescence devices.
• Evaluation and characterisation of the charge recombination lifetime in solid samples.

Moreover, the unit has capabilities in electronic and instrumentation software design in order to develop new experimental equipment in the optoelectronic area.

This unit has received funding from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, FEDER (EQC2018-005188-P) and Severo Ochoa (CEX2019-000925-S, MCIN/AEI//10.13039/501100011033).

Equipment

• CE&TPV for DSC
  
  This homemade system enables the automatic measurements of charge extraction and transient photo voltage, which is useful for the characterization of capacitance, recombination time and electron density of states of the molecular-semiconductor devices.
• QE/IPCE measurement kit
  
  Oriel 150 W xenon lamp, PTI M-101 motorized monochromator and Keithley 2400. In house made software controls all the measurement procedure.
• Solar simulator and VI tracer
  
  Abet 11000 solar simulator and Keithley 2400. All the measurements are controlled by in house made software.
• Transient absorption spectroscopy system VIS
  
  The optic bench is composed of an excitation source of nitrogen laser PTI 3300 with laser dye unit GL-301, which provides a variable wavelength source of excitation (400-700 nm); a 150 W tungsten lamp used as the probe-light source; 2 monochromators PTI M101; photodetector with filter box and oscilloscope Tektronix TDS200.
• Transient absorption spectroscopy system VIS-NIR(µs-ms)
  
  This is a homemade system composed by: an NdYAG Opolette laser system that provides a variable wavelength laser source excitation (320-1800 nm); a 150 W tungsten lamp used as the probe-light source; 2 monochromators Minuteman MM151; amplified photodetector modules at visible and near infrared; DSP-DAU high speed data rate recorder and interface software.
• VI stability measurements system
  
  A homemade system designed to observe the efficiency over time of the photovoltaic devices. Time intervals programming is allowed, wherein the curves voltage-current are registered from the devices soaked at 1 sun.
• Transient absorption spectroscopy system VIS (ns-ms)
  
  This is a homemade system composed by: an NdYAG Opolette laser system that provides a variable wavelength laser source excitation (320-1800 nm); a 300 W pulsed xenon lamp as the probe-light; homemade microcontroller synchronization module between laser and pulsed lamp;1 motorized monochromator CM101; Hamamatsu photomultiplier tube H9305-13; high speed current amplifier FEMTO DHPCA; data recording made by an oscilloscope Yokogawa DLM2024 DSP-DAU; homemade interface software.