3D electron diffraction—the missing slice completing nanoscale analysis of organic solar cells in TEM

作者：Irene Kraus, Mingjian Wu, Stefanie Rechberger, Johannes Will, Santanu Maiti, Konstantin Dengel, Andreas Kuhlmann, Marten Huck, Larry Lüer, Florian Bertram, Hans‐Georg Steinrück, Tobias Unruh, Christoph J. Brabec, Erdmann Spiecker · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-026-70690-y · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics、Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications、Block Copolymer Self-Assembly

Abstract Optimizing the performance of organic solar cells hinges on a comprehensive understanding of their nanostructures, yet traditional characterization methods often fall short, delivering incomplete structural snapshots. We introduce elastically filtered 3D electron diffraction as technique to bridge full reciprocal- and real-space structural analysis within a single transmission electron microscope. Using model bulk heterojunction DRCN5T:PC 71 BM, 3D electron diffraction reproduces key structural parameters obtained from grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, including lattice spacings, coherence lengths, and mosaicity, while also providing true in-plane access and direct registration with high-resolution imaging, diffraction imaging and nano-spectroscopy on the same sample. Application to another archetypal blend, P3HT:PC 71 BM, demonstrates the generality of the method. Our findings underscore the transformative potential of 3D electron diffraction, particularly in analyzing beam-sensitive organic thin films. The method enables correlative structural characterization of organic solar cells and opens pathways for application to a wide range of other nanostructured materials.