Materials Acceleration Platforms—Toward the Laboratory of the Future for Perovskite and Organic PV Research

The development of complex functional materials poses a multi-objective optimization problem in a large multi-dimensional parameter space. Solving it requires reproducible, user-independent laboratory work and intelligent preselection of experiments. However, experimental materials science is a field where manual routines are still predominant, although other domains like medicine, biotechnology or pharmacy have long used robotics and automation. As the number of publications on Materials Acceleration Platforms (MAPs) increases steadily, we review selected systems [1,2] and fit them into the stages of a general material development process to examine the evolution of MAPs up to the AMANDA (Autonomous Materials and Device Application) platform [3]. Subsequently, we present our newest approach to lab automation for perovksite and organic PV research with the example of precise time-controlled quenching processes for perovskite film formation with solvent, gas and vacuum and autonomous perovskite film deposition optimization using automated optical characterization (Abs, photoluminescence) and machine learning for planning of the next generation of experiments.<br/><br/>References:<br/><br/>[2] Discovery of temperature-induced stability reversal in perovskites using high-throughput robotic learning, Yicheng Zhao, Jiyun Zhang, Zhengwei Xu, Shijing Sun, Stefan Langner, Noor Titan Putri Hartono, Thomas Heumueller, Yi Hou, Jack Elia, Ning Li, Gebhard J Matt, Xiaoyan Du, Wei Meng, Andres Osvet, Kaicheng Zhang, Tobias Stubhan, Yexin Feng, Jens Hauch, Edward H Sargent, Tonio Buonassisi, Christoph J Brabec, Nature communications 12 (1), 2191<br/>[2] Stefan Langner, Florian Häse, José Darío Perea, Tobias Stubhan, Jens Hauch, Loïc M Roch, Thomas Heumueller, Alán Aspuru Guzik, Christoph J Brabec, Journal of Materials Science 56, 16422-16446<br/>[3] The evolution of Materials Acceleration Platforms: toward the laboratory of the future with AMANDA, J Wagner, CG Berger, X Du, T Stubhan, JA Hauch, CJ Brabec<br/>Journal of Materials Science 56, 16422-16446.