Current Interests

Dr Fernando Araujo de Castro is leading work on metrology to support photovoltaics and organic and printed electronics. His work focuses on developing measurement solutions to support materials and product development in three broad areas: performance (from nano- to macroscale), durability and large-area characterisation.

Biography

Fernando received his BSc and MSc in Applied Physics from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, working on spin-dependent transport in organic light emitting diodes and processing and characterization of ultrathin luminescent polymer films. He obtained a PhD degree in 2007 from the same university, having spent half of the research time in Switzerland. His PhD focused on nanostructured organic solar cells and gamma ray dosimeters based on organic semiconductors.

Fernando then moved to Switzerland to work at the Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA) on organic-metal interfaces, development of flexible transparent electrodes, organic photovoltaics and electronic memories. He joined NPL in January 2010, where he is now a Principal Research Scientist and currently coordinates a large European Metrology project (EMRP Thin Films) involving 15 partners from eight countries.

Fernando has published over 30 papers, two patent applications and several conference presentations related to thin film devices, including light emitting diodes, solar cells and electronic memories. He received the Rayleigh Award (NPL's award for the best publication) in 2012. He is an invited referee for different funding agencies and for 15 scientific journals, including Applied Physics Letters, Journal of Applied Physics, The Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Materials Chemistry, Macromolecules, Soft Materials and others.

He is a member of the Brazilian Physical Society and a Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics (CPhys MInstP).

Selected publications

• Surface and subsurface morphology of operating nanowire:fullerene solar cells revealed by photoconductive-AFM
  W.C. Tsoi, P.G. Nicholson, J.S. Kim, D. Roy, T.L. Burnett, C.E. Murphy, J. Nelson, D.D.C. Bradley, J.S. Kim, F.A. Castro*
  Energy & Environmental Science 4, 3646-3651 (2011)
• Woven Electrodes for Flexible Organic Photovoltaic Cells
  W. Kylberg, F.A. Castro, P. Chabrecek, U. Sonderegger, B.T.T. Chu, F. Nuesch, R. Hany
  Advanced Materials 23, 1015-1019 (2011)
• Organic photovoltaics: principles and techniques for nanometre scale characterization
  P.G. Nicholson, F.A. Castro
  Nanotechnology 21, 492001 (2010) (Topical Review - 26 pages)
• Origin of the Kink in Current-Density vs. Voltage Curves and Efficiency Enhancement of Polymer-C60 Heterojunction Solar Cells
  F.A. Castro, J. Heier, F. Nuesch, R. Hany
  IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 16, 1690-1699 (2010)
• Nanostructured Organic Layers via Polymer Demixing for Interface-Enhanced Photovoltaic Cells
  F.A. Castro, H. Benmansour, C.F.O. Graeff, F. Nüesch, E. Tutis, R. Hany
  Chemistry of Materials 18, 5504 - 5509 (2006)
• Influence of doping on spin-dependent exciton formation in Alq3 based OLEDs
  F.A. Castro, G.B. Silva, F. Nüesch, L. Zuppiroli, C.F.O. Graeff
  Organic Electronics 8, 249 - 255 (2007)

Selected Patents

• Substrate for an optelectronic device, F.A. Castro, P. Chabrecek, F. Nuesch, H.P. Meier, M. Rosenfelder, EU Patent Application DE 102008055969.5 (2008) / WO2010/051976 A1
• Method for production of selective or laminar coatings in plastic electronics, F.A. Castro, B. Chu, F. Nuesch, Swiss Patent Application 01558/09 (2009)

Other

• Mapping photocurrent generation in the nanoscale (presentation video)
• Information about current projects, organic electronics and photovoltaics

Contact details

E-mail: fernando.castro@npl.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 8943 6357