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Who we are
We are a young and dynamic research group based in Bern, Switzerland, and led by Prof. Natalie Banerji. In our group, chemists as well as physicists and material scientists work side by side to understand and optimize electronic devices based on organic electronic materials. In addition, we combine the best of two worlds by welcoming researchers from all over the world and by teaching local students from Bern.
This combination of different backgrounds and experiences forms a powerful symbiosis that enables us to understand the underlying principles of charge transport in the materials we study.
Our research interests
Our objective is to understand fundamental material properties (e.g., light–matter interactions, electron transfer processes, charge transport, molecular recognition) of organic and hybrid semiconductors, with applications in new generation solar cells, organic transistors, and organic bioelectronics. The current gap between missing fundamental understanding and the blind development of applications needs to be filled in order to achieve intelligent design of high-performance devices.
Our research revolves around the central question of what happens on the ultrashort time scale and ultrasmall length scale in organic solids to induce macroscopic function in devices, and how this can be optimized. Experimentally, we use a complementary palette of techniques combining (time-resolved) spectroscopy, pulsed photocurrent methods, terahertz experiments, Stark-effect spectroscopy, and device testing.
News
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Eva successfully defended her thesis!!!
New PhD in the house! Last Friday, Eva successfully defended her PhD thesis on the conductivity of doped organic semiconductors! Thanks so much for the incredible insights into the charge transport on different length and temperature scales! You did a great job and we are very proud of you!
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New group photo
Check out our new group photo 2025! We were growing over the past months and in the next weeks, we will present our new group members in detail. Stay tuned!
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New research published!
We are happy to announce our new publication by Kaishuai about the differences between copolymerization and physical mixing of glycolated and alkoxylated polymers in their OECT performance. Many thanks to the group of Wouter Maes for the collaboration on this project!
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Join FemtoMat on Bluesky
We are starting with our transition from X to Bluesky, and we would be happy to see you all over there!
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Goodbye Kaila
End of December, we sadly had to say goodbye to Kaila after a long journey with us as Master student, then PhD student and finally early PostDoc! Thanks for all the warmth and professionalism you spread in our labs for seven years! We wish you all the luck in the world for your future and […]
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FemtoMat group Fondue
For our annual Christmas group event, Natalie invited us for Fondue this time! Thanks for the invitation and the nice evening full of fruitful conversations and lots of cheese! We wish all of our friends and collaborators a happy Christmas time and a wonderful 2025!
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Maxi at MRS Fall Meeting in Boston
Maxi traveled to Boston to attend the MRS Fall Meeting 2024 that was taking place last week! There, he presented his work on the charge transport properties of oligoetherized polythiophene!
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Open position for a PhD project!
We are happy to announce that we can fill a PhD Position in Solar Cell Photophysics! To get more information about the job offer, you can click on the title. Interested? You can apply directly by contacting Natalie Banerji! With your application, please include a motivation letter and a CV. We are looking forward to […]
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New research published!
We are happy to announce our new publication entitled “Direct visualization of the charge transfer state dynamics in dilute-donor organic photovoltaic blends”, published in Nature Communications. Gareth investigated the interconversion dynamics between charge transfer state charges (CTCs) and separated charges (SCs). Many thanks to the group of Frank Ortmann for the collaboration on this project!
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Natalie presents at “Chemie am Samstag”
The lecture series “Chemie am Samstag” at the DCBP is targeted towards school kids and the science-interested public and gives them insight into state-of-the-art research. This is why we are happy to announce that Natalie presented our group’s research there in the beginning of November. We hope to see some of you in our group […]