3D Electron Diffraction -- The Missing Slice for a Complete Nanoscale Analysis of Organic Solar Cells in TEM
Abstract
Optimizing the performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) hinges on a comprehensive understanding of their nanostructures, yet traditional characterization methods often fall short, delivering incomplete structural snapshots. We introduce elastically filtered 3D Electron Diffraction (3D ED) as a ground-breaking technique bridging full reciprocal- and real-space structural analysis within a single transmission electron microscope (TEM). Using solvent-vapor annealed DRCN5T:PC71BM, 3D ED reproduces key structural parameters from GIWAXS including lattice spacings, coherence lengths, and mosaicity, while uniquely delivering true in-plane access and direct registration with high-resolution imaging, diffraction imaging and nano-spectroscopy on the same sample. A low-dose, distributed tilt strategy plus energy filtering yields high signal-to-background below damage thresholds. Extension to a second archetypal blend (P3HT:PC71BM; annealing evolution) demonstrates generality. Our findings underscore the transformative potential of 3D ED, particularly in analysing beam-sensitive organic thin films. This paves the way for new avenues in advanced correlative structural characterization of OSCs and holds potential for application to a multitude of other nanostructured materials.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2502.11254,
title = {3D Electron Diffraction -- The Missing Slice for a Complete Nanoscale Analysis of Organic Solar Cells in TEM},
author = {Irene Kraus and Mingjian Wu and Stefanie Rechberger and Johannes Will and Santanu Maiti and Konstantin Dengel and Andreas Kuhlmann and Marten Huck and Larry Lüer and Florian Bertram and Hans-Georg Steinrück and Tobias Unruh and Christoph J. Brabec and Erdmann Spiecker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.11254},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
33 pages, 6 figures