Organic solar cells using carbon based materials have the potential to deliver cheap solar electricity. The aim is to be able to produce solar cells with common printing techniques on flexible substrates, and as organic materials can be made soluble in various solvents, they are well adapted to such techniques. There is a large variation of organic materials produced for solar cells, both small molecules and polymers. Alterations of the molecular structure induce changes of the electrical and optical properties, such as band gap, mobility and light absorption. During the development of organic solar cells, the step of mixing of an electron donor and an electron acceptor caused a leap in power conversion efficiency improvement, due to an enhanced exciton dissociation rate. Top performing organic solar cells now exhibit a power conversion efficiency of over 10%. Currently, a mix of a conjugated polymer, or smaller molecule, and a fullerene derivative are commonly used as electron donor and acceptor. Here, the blend morphology plays an important role. Excitons formed in either of the donor or acceptor phase need to diffuse to the vicinity of the donor-acceptor interface to efficiently dissociate. Exciton diffusion lengths in organic materials are usually in the order of 5-10 nm, so the phases should not be much larger than this, for good exciton quenching. These charges must also be extracted, which implies that a network connected to the electrodes is needed. Consequently, a balance of these demands is important for the production of efficient organic solar cells. Morphology has been found to have a significant impact on the solar cell behaviour and has thus been widely studied. The aim of this work has been to visualize the morphology of active layers of organic solar cells in three dimensions by the use of electron tomography. The technique has been applied to materials consisting of conjugated polymers blended with fullerene derivatives. Though the contrast in these blends is poor, three-dimensional reconstructions have been produced, showing the phase formation in three dimensions at the scale of a few nanometres. Several material systems have been investigated and preparation techniques compared. Even if excitons are readily dissociated and paths for charge extraction exist, the low charge mobilities of many materials put a limit on film thickness. Although more light could be absorbed by increased film thickness, performance is hampered due to increased charge recombination. A large amount of light is thus reflected and not used for energy conversion. Much work has been put into increasing the light absorption without hampering the solar cell performance. Aside from improved material properties, various light trapping techniques have been studied. The aim is here to increase the optical path length in the active layer, and in this way improve the absorption without enhanced extinction coefficient. At much larger dimensions, light trapping in solar cells with folded configuration has been studied by the use of optical modelling. An advantage of these V-cells is that two materials with complementing optical properties may be used together to form a tandem solar cell, which may be connected in either serial or parallel configuration, with maintained light trapping feature. In this work optical absorption in V-cells has been modelled and compared to that of planar ones.

The aim of this thesis is to develop a method of optical modelling that can be used to predict visual performance of the eye. It is intended to give visual acuity estimates under normal circumstances and under a wide range of optical treatments such as photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) to correct refractive error. Visual performance refers to the performance of the eye under various conditions such as decreased object contrast, defocus and change in pupil size. (For complete abstract open document)

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>Magister Scientiae - MSc / Amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC) is a versatile material due to its interesting mechanical, chemical and optical properties that make it a candidate for application in solar cell technology. As a-SiC stoichiometry can be tuned over a large range, consequently is its bandgap. In this thesis, amorphous silicon carbide thin films for solar cells application have been deposited by means of the electron-beam physical vapour deposition (e-beam PVD) technique and have been isochronally annealed at varying temperatures. The structural and optical properties of the films have been investigated by Fourier transform Infrared and Raman spectroscopies, X-ray diffraction, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy and UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy. The effect of annealing is a gradual crystallization of the amorphous network of as-deposited silicon carbide films and consequently the microstructural and optical properties are altered. We showed that the microstructural changes of the as-deposited films depend on the annealing temperature. High temperature enhances the growth of Si and SiC nanocrystals in amorphous SiC matrix. Improved stoichiometry of SiC comes with high band gap of the material up to 2.53 eV which makes the films transparent to the visible radiation and thus they can be applied as window layer in solar cells.

This thesis describes investigations into the optical and device design of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with the aim of exploring the factors controlling the spatial emission pattern of OLEDs and developing novel OLEDs with directional emission by applying wavelength-scale photonic microstructure. The development of directional OLEDs was broken down into two steps: the development of efficient narrow linewidth OLEDs and the integration of wavelength-scale photonic microstructures into narrow linewidth OLEDs. The narrow linewidth OLEDs were developed using europium (Eu) complexes. The electrical optimisation of solution-processed Eu-based OLEDs using commercially available materials was investigated. The optimised Eu-based OLEDs gave an external quantum efficiency of 4.3% at a display brightness of 100 cd/m². To our knowledge, this is the highest efficiency reported for solution-processed Eu-based OLED devices, and the efficiency roll-off has been reduced compared with other reported references. Photonic microstructures were applied to develop directional OLEDs using the efficient Eu-based OLEDs. Two contrasting strategies were used. One was to embed photonic microstructures into Eu-based OLEDs, the other was to couple photonic microstructures externally onto the devices. The microstructured devices developed by the former strategy boosted the emitted power in desired angles in both s- and p-polarisations and doubled the fraction of emission in an angle range of 4⁰. The devices developed by the external coupling strategy achieved even higher directionality and the out-coupled emission was a confined beam with easy control of beam steering. Around 90% of the emitted power was confined in an angular range of 20⁰ in the detection plane. The optical properties can be optimised independently without compromising the electrical properties of devices, which gives major advantages in terms of effectiveness and versatility. Optical models were also developed to investigate the out-coupling mechanism of various trapped modes and develop OLEDs with stronger directionality.

The main aim of this thesis is to evaluate the effect of meridional blur, using refractive induced astigmatism, on visual performance at far and close distances. Visual performance was evaluated using letter discrimination tasks at distance and near (visual acuity, VA) and a reading task at near on subjects with pharmacologically blocked (young) or absent accommodation (presbyopic and pseudophakic). The effect of astigmatism was tested using positive cylindrical lenses oriented at 180 and 90 degrees, these simulating with- (WTR) and against-the-rule (ATR) astigmatism. Other refractive status were also evaluated, namely, in-focus and spherical defocus. The visual performance data were correlated with biometric measurements (pupil size, anterior chamber depth (ACD), corneal and ocular aberrations, corneal multifocality, patient age, axial length). Further, the functionality of meridional blur was evaluated for alphabets in addition to the standard Roman alphabet using a VA task. The results confirm that myopic astigmatism contributes to a better visual performance at closer distances, with ATR astigmatism providing higher performance for reading tasks compared to other forms of astigmatism. Anatomical factors such as pupil size, corneal multifocality and ACD were significantly correlated visual performance, while other ocular characteristics were not. Ray tracing modelling using wavefront data was a moderate predictor of VA and reading acuity. The results of the effect of meridional blur orientation on alphabets other than the Roman alphabet, suggest that visual performance is dependent on the interaction between blur orientation and letter's spatial characteristics. In conclusion, pseudoaccommodation is a multifactorial phenomenon with pupil size being the major contributor for the improvement in visual performance. Against-the-rule shows advantages over WTR astigmatism, by providing higher reading performance, however extending the present and previous findings for clinical application will require further investigation on the effect of meridional blur in common and socio-culturally adapted tasks.

The main aim of this thesis is to evaluate the effect of meridional blur, using refractive induced astigmatism, on visual performance at far and close distances. Visual performance was evaluated using letter discrimination tasks at distance and near (visual acuity, VA) and a reading task at near on subjects with pharmacologically blocked (young) or absent accommodation (presbyopic and pseudophakic). The effect of astigmatism was tested using positive cylindrical lenses oriented at 180 and 90 degrees, these simulating with- (WTR) and against-the-rule (ATR) astigmatism. Other refractive status were also evaluated, namely, in-focus and spherical defocus. The visual performance data were correlated with biometric measurements (pupil size, anterior chamber depth (ACD), corneal and ocular aberrations, corneal multifocality, patient age, axial length). Further, the functionality of meridional blur was evaluated for alphabets in addition to the standard Roman alphabet using a VA task. The results confirm that myopic astigmatism contributes to a better visual performance at closer distances, with ATR astigmatism providing higher performance for reading tasks compared to other forms of astigmatism. Anatomical factors such as pupil size, corneal multifocality and ACD were significantly correlated visual performance, while other ocular characteristics were not. Ray tracing modelling using wavefront data was a moderate predictor of VA and reading acuity. The results of the effect of meridional blur orientation on alphabets other than the Roman alphabet, suggest that visual performance is dependent on the interaction between blur orientation and letter¿s spatial characteristics. In conclusion, pseudoaccommodation is a multifactorial phenomenon with pupil size being the major contributor for the improvement in visual performance. Against-the-rule shows advantages over WTR astigmatism, by providing higher reading performance, however extending the present and previous findings for clinical application will require further investigation on the effect of meridional blur in common and socio-culturally adapted tasks. / Bradford School of Optometry and Vision Sciences

L’imagerie moléculaire vise à étudier les processus biologiques in vivo. L’imagerie Cerenkov est une technique d’imagerie moléculaire qui se développe depuis 2009. Le principe est d’injecter un radiotraceur, molécule marquée par un isotope radioactif, puis à enregistrer le signal optique émis par effet Cerenkov. L’imagerie Cerenkov permet d’imager des radiotraceurs émettant des rayonnements β+ (positon) et β- (électron).L’effet Cerenkov se produit lorsqu’une particule chargée se déplace dans un milieu avec une vitesse supérieure à celle de la lumière dans ce même milieu. Si ce seuil est dépassé, on observe alors une émission de photons optiques appelée rayonnement Cerenkov. Le spectre de cette émission s’étend de l’UV à l’IR de manière continue et le nombre de photons émis en fonction de la longueur d’onde varie en 1/λ².Mon thèse consiste à développer l’imagerie Cerenkov 3D pour reconstruire la distribution du radiotraceur in vivo. Nous disposons d’une plateforme d’imagerie nommée AMISSA (A Multimodality Imaging System for Small Animal) dont le but est de développer et de mettre à disposition des outils d’imagerie moléculaire pour du petit animal. / Molecular imaging aims to study biological processes in vivo. Cerenkov imaging is a molecular imaging technology that has developed since 2009. The principle is to inject a radioactive tracer molecule labeled with a radioactive isotope, then recording the optical signal emitted by the Cerenkov effect. The Cerenkov imaging allows imaging radiotracers emitting β+ radiation (positron) and β- (electron). The Cerenkov effect occurs when a charged particle moves through a medium with a speed greater than that of light in this same medium. If this threshold is exceeded, we observed an emission of optical photons called Cerenkov radiation. The emission spectrum of this extends from UV to IR continuously and the number of photons emitted as a function of the wavelength varies by 1/λ². My PhD is to develop 3D imaging Cerenkov to reconstruct the distribution of the radiotracer in vivo. We have an imaging platform named Amissa (A Multimodality Imaging System for Small Animal) whose purpose is to develop and make available tools for molecular imaging of small animals.

Le contexte du réchauffement climatique entraîne un développement des technologies CSP (Concentrated Solar Power). La réduction des coûts de production de ces technologies passe par une amélioration de la durabilité et de l'efficacité des composants des centrales solaires. Les températures de fonctionnement élevées du CSP (250-600°C) nécessitent d'employer des absorbeurs spectralement sélectifs afin de limiter les pertes par radiation. Cette thèse propose une architecture originale d'absorbeurs sélectifs stables à haute température sous air en combinant un dépôt de TiAlN en couches minces avec un réseau de diffraction. L'ajout d'une texturation de surface augmente l'absorption solaire du dépôt par un effet d'absorption et de gradient des indices optiques effectifs conduisant à une augmentation du rendement photothermique de l'absorbeur. Dans ce mémoire, la modélisation du comportement optique des absorbeurs texturés, les méthodes de fabrication du réseau de diffraction ainsi que le dépôt des couches minces par PVD et PECVD seront abordés et les mesures expérimentales seront comparées aux modélisations. L'analyse des absorbeurs texturés fabriqués confirme un gain de rendement photothermique pouvant atteindre +3% ainsi qu'une stabilité thermique remarquable à 500°C sous air jusqu'à 300 h de recuit / The global warming context reinforces the development of CSP technologies. Cost reduction of CSP requires the improvement of component durability and efficiency. The solar absorbers should be spectrally selective since the high working temperatures of CSP plants increase the radiative thermal losses. This thesis proposes an original, spectrally selective absorber structure combining TiAlN based coatings and diffractive gratings. The surface texturing provided by the diffractive gratings improves the solar absorption of the thin coating by an effective optical index gradation effect leading toincreased photothermal efficiency. In this thesis, the modeling of the textured absorber’s optical behavior, fabrication methods of diffractive gratings, as well as layer deposition by PVD/PECVD will be discussed. Experimental measurements will be compared to the theoretical modelling. The experimental analysis of textured absorbers confirms the increase of photothermal efficiency by almost 3%, as well as a good thermal stability at 500°C in air for 300 hours of annealing

This thesis presents the development and in-vivo applications of wearable and portable devices for the investigation of light interaction with tissue involved in Photodynamic therapy (PDT) and during contraction of muscles. A hand-held device and a clinical method were developed for time course in-vivo imaging of the fluorescence of the photosensitizer Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) in healthy and diseased skin with the aim to guide improvement of PDT protocols. The device was used in a small clinical study on 11 healthy volunteers and 13 patients diagnosed with non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC). Two types of PpIX precursors were administered: Ameluz gel and Metvix® cream. The fluorescence was imaged with a 10 minute time step over three hours which was the recommended metabolism time before commencing PDT treatment at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. The fluorescence time course was calculated by integrating the areas with the highest intensity. The fluorescence continued to grow in all subjects during the three hours. The time course varied between individuals. There was no statistical significance between either healthy volunteers or patients in Ameluz vs Metvix® groups; nor was there statistical difference between the three lesions groups (Actinic keratosis (AK) Ameluz vs AK Metvix® vs Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) Metvix®). The p-value was larger than 0.05 in a two sample t-test with unequal variances for all the groups. However, there was strong body site dependence between the head & neck compared to the lower leg & feet, or the trunk & hands body site groups (p-value < 0.01). One of the possible explanations for this was temperature and vasculature variation in skin at different body sites: the temperature is higher and the vasculature structure is denser at the head and the neck compared to the lower leg or the trunk. The temperature was not measured during the study. So in order to support this hypothesis, typical skin temperatures at the lesion sites were taken from the IR thermal images of healthy skin available in literature. PpIX fluorescence had a positive correlation to temperature. If this hypothesis is true, it will be highly important to PDT treatment. Increasing the temperature could speed up the metabolism and reduce the waiting time before starting the treatment; ambient temperature should be taken into account for daylight PDT; cooling air as pain management should be administered with caution. Potential improvements for wearable PDT light sources were investigated by modelling light transport in skin for the current LED-based Ambulight PDT device, a commercial OLED for future devices and a directional OLED developed in the group. The optical models were implemented in commercial optical software (with intrinsic Monte Carlo ray tracing and Henyey-Greenstein scattering approximation) which was validated on diffuse reflectance and transmittance measurements using in-house made tissue phantoms. The modelling was applied to investigate the benefits from diffusive and forward scattering properties of skin on light transmission in treatment light sources. 1 mm thick skin can only compensate approximately 10% of non-uniform irradiance. It means that uniform illumination is crucial for the treatment light sources. Forward scattering in skin showed a 10% improved light transmission from a collimated emission compared to a wide angle Lambertian emission. However, depth-dependent transmission measurements of directional vs Lambertian emission from organic light emitting films (a nano-imprinted grating was fabricated to provide directional emission in one of the films), collimated vs diffused HeNe laser light through fresh porcine skin did not show the expected improvement. This could be explained by skin roughness which was previously found to change the optical properties and may also affect light coupling. The modelling was applied to guide an optical design of another wearable device – a muscle contraction sensor. Muscle is fibrous and because of that scatters light differently in different directions. The sensor detects the change in backscattered light in parallel and perpendicular directions with respect to muscle fibres. The sensor was implemented on a wearable bandage on fully flexible substrate with flexible OLED and organic photodiodes. The major advantages of organic optoelectronic sensing compared to conventional electromyography (EMG) sensors are the ability to distinguish two types of contractions (isotonic and isometric), insensitivity to electromagnetic interference and the absence of an immune response due to non-invasive electrode-free sensing. Optical modelling was performed to understand the operation of the sensor. A 3D anisotropic optical model of scattering in muscle was created by geometrical manipulations with the standard Henyey-Greenstein scattering volumes. The penetration depth from the Super Yellow OLED was found to be 20-25 mm; the optimal separation between the source and the detector was found to be 20 mm. This distance provided a still detectable signal along with the best discrimination between the two backscatterings. When a 2 mm thick layer of skin and a 2 mm thick layer of adipose tissue were added to the model, the signal was hugely diffused. The discrimination between the two backscatterings decreased by three orders of magnitude, the penetration depth in muscle was reduced, and the intensity of the signal dropped down but was still detectable. With 5 mm thick adipose tissue and 2 mm thick skin the signal was too diffused and interacted with very shallow layers of muscle which approached the limits of the optical sensing of muscle activity.