Instrumentation
Electrochemical Workstations
Our lab is equiped with several electrochemical workstations. Those for instance include chi832a, chi1206.
High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
This setup can be used to perform reverse phase HPLC and ion exchange chromatography (IC). Coupled with modern electrochemical detectors, it can provide better sensitivity and selectivity for ion separation than conventional IC with a conductivity detector.
Scanning Electrochemical Microscope (I)
This custom build instrument consists of CHI Electrochemical Analyzer, three encoded EXFO inchworm stages (20 nm resolution), and EXFO inchworm controller. Together with SR830 LIA it can carry out AC-SECM experiments. This instrument can perform appraoch curve experiments as well as constant height and constant distance imaging.
Scanning Electrochemical Microscope (II)
This instrument consists of bipotentiostat, a Nikon inverted microscope, closed loop piezo scanning stage with controller (Pyltech PI), and potentiostat. It is capable of performing imaging experiments with sub-naometer resolution.
Lasers
Femtosecond Laser System - The Ti:Sapphire laser system (Verdi5, Coherent) is comprised of a CW seed laser, a Ti:Sapphire oscillator, and a pulse switcher. It can serve as a powerful light source for both spectroscopy and near-field microscopy.
Argon Laser System (a generous gift from Prof. Nils Petersen) - The Argon laser system provides CW laser beams at wavelengths 529, 502, 497, 488, 477, 473, 466 and 458 nm. It can serve as a powerful light source for confocal and near-field microscopy.
Micropipette Electrochemistry Set-up
Miniaturized micropipette electrochemistry set-up with an integrated microscope and a video monitoring system.
P-2000 Laser Based Micropipette Puller
P-2000 micropipette puller (Sutter Instruments) is a sophisticated instrument for fabrication of micropipettes, optical fiber probes, and nanospray tips. It is used to fabricate innovative SPM probes.
Multi Mode Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM)
This state of the art modified Alafa-SNOM (Witec, Germany) instrument is used to carry out confocal microscopy, confocal Raman microscopy, AFM, and SECM (AC and DC modes), at sub-nanometer resolution.
Hot Plates
A work station consisting of several Ika C-MAG7 hot plate stirrers equipped with ETS D-5 temperature controller for assembly line production of solar cells.
Ivium CompactStat and the ModuLight Module
An electrochemical set up that useful for a multitude of different measurements. An example of which is intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) which investigates the kinetics at the semiconductor-solution interface.
Photoelectrochemical Setup
This setup contains the chi832a electrochemical analyzer, a ThorLabs SC10 shutter controller, a Newport 69907 Universal Arc Lamp Power Supply with a Newport 67005 Arc Lamp. It provides such uses as the measurements of current production under illumination and in the dark within one experiment.
X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer
A Horiba XGT-5000 machine using a rhodium X-ray source, high energy X-rays can probe a sample. With a high-purity silicon dectector cooled under liquid nitrogen, the fluorescence of the sample is collected and analyzed. A mapping function can scan the surface of the sample and identify the concentration of individual elements on the surface.
Electrophoretic Depostion
Keithley 2400 SourceMeter is a compact, single channel, DC parametric tester. In operation it can act as a voltage source, a current source, a voltage meter, a current meter, and ohmmeter. If electrodes are placed into a conductive solution with dispersed polar nanoparticles, an applied potential can deposit the nanoparticles onto a substrate. This compact material can then be further processed.
Annealing Furnace
A vacuum sealed quartz tube used for high temperature and pressure studies of synthetic compounds. A method used for adhesion of nanocrystalline absorbing layers (CIS or CZTS) on a substrate.
Visible and NIR spectrometer
Spectrometer used to aquire visible or NIR photoluminescence spectra.
Electrochemiluminescence
This is a home-made system for electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) measurements. The ECL can be measured by using a photomultiplier tube (PMT) or a spectrometer with a back-illuminated CCD camera (from Andor Technology).
Modulab System
Liquid|liquid electrochemistry experiments in our lab typically use the Modulab System (Ametek Advanced Measurement Technology, Farnborough, New Hampshire, United Kingdom) equipped with a femto ammeter. The working electrode lead of the potentiostat is attached to the micropipette holder through a BNC connector which in turn is connected to an integrated silver wire mounted within the aqueous phase; the counter and reference electrodes are then coupled to a single silver wire immersed in the organic phase. Because of the small current employed at a micro interface between two immiscible electrolytic solutions (micro-ITIES), this set-up only needs two electrodes.
