New COPE Facility Created to Scale-up Organic Electronic and Active Materials

The Georgia Tech Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (Georgia Tech-COPE) has established a new facility dedicated to the synthesis of organic molecular and polymeric electronic and active materials on scales that allow scientists and engineers to conduct system-level studies to better evaluate their potential for commercialization.

“The material scale-up facility is a milestone for COPE. Being able to share efficiently our new materials in multi-gram quantities with our collaborators and industrial partners will accelerate their adoption and transfer into new products,” said Bernard Kippelen, the director of COPE.

Professors Marder and Reynolds proposed the formation of the facility to EVPR Steve Cross, whose office provided resources through the Georgia Tech Institute for Materials (IMAT) for creation of the facility, as part of IMAT’s campus-wide investment in infrastructure.

Tim Parker, principal research scientist in the Marder group, designed and oversaw the creation of the facility. The availability of the equipment on campus directly impacts the ability for Georgia Tech faculty and researchers to carryout research and educational activities. For instance, the new capabilities provide the key scale-up resources for a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) sponsored by the Office of Naval Research for the development of advanced photovoltaics.

Located on the second floor of the Molecular Science and Engineering (MoSE) building, the facility serves the organic materials community at Georgia Tech and its collaborators. The facility and its staff support researchers will provide government laboratories and companies with a sufficient quantity of new materials for system-level evaluation and testing. These materials will enable future joint development research programs to speed-up their use in commercial applications.

The main equipment at the facility currently includes a 20 liter rotary evaporator, a 10 liter reactor with temperature control from -70°C to 200°C, and larger scale purification equipment including a chromatography system with 100-200 gram capacity. The reactor and chromatography equipment are located in a walk-in fume hood with double volume spill containment for researcher safety.