Wearable technology is quickly becoming commonplace in our everyday life - fit-ness and health monitors, smart watches, and Google Glass, just to name a few. It is very clear that in near future the wearable technology will only grow. One of the biggest wearable fields is the E-textiles. E-textiles empower clothes with new functionality by enhancing fabrics with electronics and interconnects. The main obstacle to the development of E-textile field is the relative difficulty and large tolerance in its manufacturing as compared to the standard circuit production. Current methods such as the application of conductive foils, embroidering of conductive wires and treatment with conductive coatings do not possess efficient, fast and reliable mass production traits inherent to the electronic industry. On the other hand, the method of conductive printing on textile has the potential to unlock the efficiency similar to PCB production, due to its roll-to-roll and reel-to-reel printing capabilities. Further-more, printing on textiles is a common practice to realize graphics, artwork, etc. and thus adaptability to conductive ink printing will be relatively easier. Even though conductive printing is a fully additive process, the end circuit layout is very similar to the one produced via PCB manufacture. However, due to high surface roughness and porosity of textiles, efficient and reliable printing on textile has remained elusive. Direct conductive printing on textile is possible but only on specialized dense and tightly interwoven fabrics. Such fabrics are usually uncommon and expensive. Another option is to employ an interface layer that flattens the textile surface, thus allowing printing on it. The interface layer method can be used with a variety of textiles such as polyester/cotton that can be found in any store, making this method promising for wearable electronics. Very few examples and that too of simple structures such as a line, square patch or electrode have been reported which utilize an interface layer [1{13]. No sophisticated circuit or a system level design involving integration of components on textile has been demonstrated in this medium before. This work, for the first time, demonstrates a complete system printed on a polyester/cotton T-shirt, that helps in tracking the person who is wearing that T-shirt through a smart phone or any Internet enabled device. A low cost dielectric material (Creative Materials 116-20 Dielectric ink) is used to print the interface layer through manual screen printing method. The circuit layout and antenna have been ink-jet printed with silver nano-particles based conductive ink. Utilizing WiFi technology, this wearable tracking system can locate the position of lost children, senior citizens, patients or people in uniforms, lab coats, hospital gowns, etc. The device is small enough (55 mm x 45 mm) and light weight (10.5g w/o battery) for people to comfortably wear it and can be easily concealed in case discretion is required. Field tests have revealed that a person can be localized with up to 8 meters accuracy and the device can wirelessly communicate with a hand-held receiver placed 55 meters away. Future development of the method with techniques such as automated screen printing, pick and place components, and digital ink-jet printing can pave the way for mass production.

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have received tremendous attention in recent years due to their numerous attractive attributes such as, the potential for high power conversion efficiency (PCE), mechanical flexibility, and the potential for large-scale manufacturing via low-cost techniques. To date, the record PCE values for bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) OPVs exceed 18% for single-junction cells thanks to the rapid development of donors and acceptors materials for active layer. However, the progress of hole-transporting layer (HTL) systems, which is a key device component to reduce the additional performance losses of OPVs, has been limited with only a handful of materials available like PEDOT:PSS and MoOX. In this thesis, I introduce serval materials to unitize as hole-selective contact in high-performance OPVs. Firstly, the application of liquid-exfoliated two-dimensional transition metal disulfides (TMDs) is demonstrated as the HTLs in OPVs. The solution processing of few-layer WS2 suspensions was directly spun onto transparent indium-tin-oxide (ITO) electrodes yield solar cells with superior power conversion efficiency (PCE), improved fill-factor (FF), enhanced short-circuit current (JSC), and lower series resistance than devices based on PEDOT:PSS. Based on PM6:Y6:PC71BM BHJ layer, the cells with WS2 HTL exhibit the highest PCE of 17% thanks to the favorable photonic structure and reduced bimolecular recombination losses in WS2-based cells. Next, the self-assembled monolayer (SAM) namely 2PACz is utilized as hole-selective contact directly onto the ITO anode. The 2PACz modifies the work function of ITO while simultaneously affecting the BHJ layer’s morphology deposited atop. This ITO-2PACz anode is utilized in OPV with PM6:BTP-eC9:PC71BM, showing a remarkable PCE of 18.0%. The enhanced performance is attributed to reduced contact-resistance, lower bimolecular recombination losses, and improved charge transport within the BHJ layer. Lastly, the previously 2PACz SAM was functionalized with bromide functional groups, namely Br-2PACz, which is investigated as hole-extracting interlayers in OPVs. The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy of Br-2PACz was measured at -6.01 eV, and significant changes the work function of ITO electrodes upon chemical functionalization. OPV cells based on PM6:BTP-eC9:PC71BM using ITO/Br-2PACz anodes exhibit a maximum PCE of 18.4%, outperforming devices with ITO/PEDOT:PSS (17.5%), resulting from lower interface resistance, improved hole transport, and longer carrier lifetimes.

Le contexte actuel de forte croissance des besoins en énergie dans le monde nécessite une diversification de sa production, notamment vers des sources renouvelables tout en limitant autant qu’il est possible l’émission de gaz à effet de serre. Parmi les énergies renouvelables une des plus prometteuses et abondantes est l’énergie solaire et il apparaît évident que l’énergie solaire, thermique ou photovoltaïque, représente un enjeu crucial pour diminuer la consommation d’énergie fossile. Actuellement 90 % des générateurs solaires sont élaborés en silicium cristallin, ce qui pose un problème d’approvisionnement en matière première, les producteurs de silicium n’ayant pas su anticiper la forte expansion de la filière solaire. Des concepts innovants présentent une forte potentialité en termes de coût de production et d’application, notamment les filières organiques et hybrides (organique/oxyde métallique). En Europe, la France est très active dans ce domaine de recherche, en particulier en ce qui concerne l’utilisation de nouveaux matériaux nanostructurés organiques ou de structures hybrides. C'est pourquoi Disasolar, une start-up française spécialisée dans le photovoltaïque souple, souhaite développer cette activité en élaborant des modules solaires souples par impression jet d'encre. Les objectifs de cette thèse sont d'étudier des nouveaux matériaux d'interface imprimables et d'évaluer l'effet de la dimension des nanoparticules sur la topologie et les performances des dispositifs. Et dans un deuxième temps l'étude portera sur l'impression des matériaux d'interface et la stabilité des cellules solaires organiques. / The current context of strong growth in energy demands in the world requires diversification of its production, in particular towards renewable sources while limiting as far as possible the emission of greenhouse gases. Among the most promising and abundant renewable energies is solar energy and it is evident that solar, thermal or photovoltaic energy represents a crucial issue to reduce the consumption of fossil energy. Currently 90% of the solar generators are made of crystalline silicon, which poses a problem of supply of raw material, as silicon producers did not know how to anticipate the strong expansion of the solar sector. Innovative concepts present a high potential in terms of cost of production and application, in particular organic and hybrid (organic / metal oxide) dies. In Europe, France is very active in this area of research, particularly with regard to the use of new organic nanostructured materials or hybrid structures. This is why Disasolar, a French start-up specializing in flexible photovoltaics, wants to develop this activity by developing flexible solar modules by inkjet printing. The objectives of this thesis are to study new printable interface materials and to evaluate the effect of nanoparticle size on the topology and performance of devices. And secondly, the study will focus on the printing of interface materials and the stability of organic solar cells.

Organic semiconductor technology has gained attention in both the sensor and display markets due to its low cost and simple fabrication techniques. The ability to fabricate organic semiconductor devices such as photodetectors and transistors on a flexible, lightweight substrate makes them less fragile and ideal candidates for portable large-area imaging applications. The use of organic semiconductor technology in large-area medical imaging can bring about a new generation of flexible and lightweight indirect X-ray imagers. These imagers are immune to mechanical shock and should be ideal for portable intraoral X-ray radiology. In order to realize these organic flexible imagers and their use in large-area medical imaging, many challenges associated with the device performance and fabrication need to be overcome. Among these challenges, one of the greatest is to improve the dark current performance of the organic semiconductor photodetectors (key for imager performance) with a high-photo to-dark current ratio. Low dark current is needed to improve the sensitivity of the imager, whereas a large photo-to-dark current ratio reduces noise in the extracted image. Numerous techniques have been reported to improve the dark current performance in vertical organic photodetector design; however, lateral photodetectors still lack research attention. This thesis presents a lateral multilayer photodetector design and a simplified technique to improve the dark current performance of lateral organic semiconductor photodetectors. Our technique allows us to apply a large bias voltage while maintaining a low dark current, high photo-to-dark current ratio, and improves detector speed; thus, the overall sensitivity of the detector is improved. We further show the integration of an organic photodetector with an organic backplane readout circuit to form a flexible large-area imager. This imager can be used for large-area digital imaging applications such as in medical radiology.

In this thesis, it was shown that thin films of hexagonal praseodymium sesquioxide on Si(111) can be transformed to B-oriented twin free films of cubic praseodymium dioxide with oxygen vacancies by post deposition annealing in 1 atm. oxygen at temperatures from 300°C up to 700°C for 30 minutes. Films annealed at 100°C and 200°C are still purely hexagonal praseodymium sesquioxide after the annealing process. In the transformed films, two stoichiometric phases coexist laterally. The lateral lattice constant of both species is almost identical to the one of the originally deposited hexagonal praseodymium sesquioxide. Therefore, we assume that the lateral lattice constant is pinned throughout the oxidation process.The species are hence strained and show different vertical lattice constants, depending on the amount of oxygen vacancies. In some samples, those vacancies were partly ordered vertically, leading to a unit cell twice as large as expected for stoichiometric praseodymium dioxide.During the annealing process, an amorphous interfacial layer between substrate and oxide was detected. While the existence of this layer was known before, it was possible for the first time to quantify the thickness of the praseodymium rich part of this interface for epitaxially grown films. It was shown that this layer starts to grow significantly only during post deposition annealing at 500°C or more.These and other results for thin films were connected to previously published data for bulk praseodymia. The multi column model mentioned above for laterally coexisting praseodymia species in thin films was backed up by powder data. As a matter of fact, it was shown that this coexistence of several praseodymia species can be expected to be the rule rather than the exception.Strong evidence was found that results interpreted previously as stoichiometric cubic praseodymium sesquioxide contain more oxygen than originally thought...