Anna-Lena’s master’s thesis received an award from the Department of Materials Science.
Every year, the Department of Materials Science is awarding two study prizes for the master’s programs in Materials Science and Engineering and Nanotechnology. This prize is intended to honor students who have distinguished themselves through outstanding academic achievements. This year the award goes to Anna-Lena and her MSc thesis “Extrinsic Degradation Studies for Organic Solar Cells Under Oxygen”. Anna-Lena Heß earned her Bachelor of Science in Materials Science and Engineering at TU Ilmenau and completed her Master’s degree in the same field at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg in May 2025. During her studies, she worked in the High-Throughput Materials and Devices for PV group at the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg (HIERN), where she also conducted her Master’s thesis titled “Extrinsic Degradation Studies for Organic Solar Cells Under Oxygen” The thesis was supervised by Prof. Christoph Brabec, Tobias Osterrieder (M.Sc.), and Vanessa Arango (M.Eng.).
Her work focused on accelerated degradation studies of organic solar cells under oxygen exposure, including the use of silver nanowire electrodes. She also screened various donor and acceptor materials for oxygen stability and tested a mitigation strategy using a radical scavenger layer to slow degradation. Congratulations to Anna-Lena!