Nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) are integrated miniature devices that can sense or actuate on the nanoscale, while generating observable effects on the macroscale. They are beginning to shape into one of the key technologies of the 21st century, which has the potential to revolutionize both industrial and consumer products, transforming the way we live and work through a multitude of applications (ranging from displays, smart phones, portable electronics and computer peripherals to cars, medical diagnostics and therapy, metrology and navigation). However, nanoscopic mechanical motion underpinning the functionality of such systems is often affected by a number of parasitic effects and the chief among them is stiction - unintentional adhesion of moving parts leading to a catastrophic failure of the devices. Correspondingly, the ability to engage and control reliably mechanical movements in NEMS is the main challenge of the technology. We believe that by combining NEMS with liquid crystals we can meet this challenge in a simple yet efficient manner and develop a new generation of NEMS - stiction-free hybrid nano-electro-mechanical systems, which will feature dynamically adjustable behaviour and field-programmable functions. Our approach exploits elastic distortions in liquid crystals coupled to nanoscopic mechanical motion in operating NEMS. By engaging transitions between various structural phases of liquid crystals and their susceptibility to a wide range of stimuli (i.e. heat, light, electric and magnetic fields) we will introduce a mechanism for tuning dynamically the response characteristics of the resulting hybrids and eliminate the need for additional integrated circuitry, thus, reducing the overall complexity and cost of the devices. A broad spectrum of structural transitions exhibited by liquid crystals (when confined at the nanoscale) should further enrich the behavior of such hybrid NEMS as actuators, sensors, relays, re-configurable metamaterials and plasmonic circuits, making the development of adaptive and 'smart' nanosystems a practical proposition.

The first electronic devices using organic semiconductors have just entered the market: many displays of mobile phones consist of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). However, these OLED-displays are considered only the first wave of organic electronic (OE) products, with organic solar cells and organic lighting expected to follow soon. Organic solar cells are currently a very active field of research, because they have the potential to become a very cheap, large area, and flexible photovoltaic technology. They furthermore can have unique properties like custom-made shapes, semi-transparency and different colours, considerably expanding the potential market to areas where current technologies are struggling. Records for conversion efficiencies have reached values above 10% and lifetimes exceeding 10 years in the laboratory, i.e. passing important milestones that are often considered as minimum requirement to become viable for commercial applications. However, one major challenge for industry trying to commercialise this technology is: for any kind of device using thin organic semiconducting layers, its electrical and optical properties strongly depend on molecular arrangement in the organic layer, in particular for organic solar cells. To a large extent, the interdependencies between molecular structure, processing, morphology in the thin organic film, and the device properties is a black box. The current approach for improving solar cells is to make more new molecules and to run an extensive process optimisation and device testing, but there are nearly unlimited options of organic chemistry and many degrees of freedom in process parameters. This nearly trial-and-error process is consuming time and money, as well as carrying the risk that the best organic semiconductors are discarded due to wrong processing. Our project will look into this black box in a close collaboration of four industrial partners (Merck Chemicals Ltd, Kurt J. Lesker Company Ltd, Eight19 Ltd, Oxford PV Ltd) and three academic partners (ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Diamond Lightsource, University of Oxford) and subsequently develop ways to optimise the manufacturing of organic solar cells. This involves optimisation along the complete value chain, from the design and synthesis of organic semiconductors, the development of manufacturing equipment, to the final production of organic solar cells. If successful, this project will lead to a faster market introduction of thin film solar cells that have the potential to transform the way we use solar energy.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have the potential to become an environmental friendly, inexpensive, large area and flexible photovoltaics technology. Their main advantages are low process temperatures, the potential for very low cost due to abundant materials and scalable processing, and the possibility of producing flexible devices on plastic substrates. To improve their commercialization capacity, to compete with established power generation and to complement other renewable energy technologies, the performance of state-of-the-art OSCs needs to be further improved. Our goals within SEPOMO – Spins in Efficient Photovoltaic devices based on Organic Molecules – are to bring the performance of OSCs forward by taking advantage of the so far unexplored degree of freedom of photogenerated species in organic materials, their spin. This challenging idea provides a unified platform for the excellent research to promote the world-wide position of Europe in the field of organic photovoltaics and electronics, and to train strongly motivated early stage researchers (ESRs) for a career in science and technology oriented industry that is rapidly growing. Our scientific objectives are to develop several novel routes to enhance the efficiency of OSC by understanding and exploiting the electronic spin interactions. This will allow us to address crucial bottlenecks in state-of-the-art OSCs: we will increase the quantum efficiency by reducing the dominant recombination losses and by enhancing the light harvesting and exciton generation, e.g. by means of internal upconversion of excited states. Our ESRs will be trained within this interdisciplinary (physics, chemistry, engineering) and intersectoral (academia, R&D center, enterprise) consortium in highly relevant fundamental yet application-oriented research with the potential to commercialise the results. The hard and soft skills learned in our network are central for the ESRs to pursue their individual careers in academics or industry.