Carbonaceous asteroids are leftover materials from the early solar system. They did not undergo planetary differentiation processes and thus still retained signatures and clues of the origin and evolution of the solar system. Thus, samples of carbonaceous asteroids provide significant potential for deciphering the origin of the solar system. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft returned the first samples of a carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu. In this work, we report the nanoscale mineralogy and organic matter content of two Ryugu particles, A0030 and C0034. These were analyzed by highly novel scattering‐type scanning near‐field optical microscopy (s‐SNOM)‐based nanoscale‐Fourier transform infrared (nano‐FTIR) spectroscopy with ∼20 nm spatial resolution. The nano‐FTIR measurements were supported by confocal micro‐Raman imaging and spectroscopy (∼500 nm/pixel spatial sampling). Our investigations show that the two Ryugu particles (a) contain different silicate mineralogies, indicating heterogeneous and incomplete aqueous alteration and (b) are highly rich in organic matter, consisting a variety of molecular functional groups. The spatial distributions of chemical functional groups and their associations based on pseudo‐heterodyne (PsHet) SNOM imaging show that the organic matter is distributed as either diffused or discrete grains. Micro‐Raman spectra show that the Ryugu particles experienced minimal thermal metamorphism, although A0030 was slightly more heated than C0034. The identification of abundant nanoscale organic molecules within the Ryugu grains that could not be identified via micrometer‐scale investigations emphasizes the importance of using nanoscale nondestructive methods for studying primitive solar system materials, such as Ryugu and OSIRIS‐Rex particles and those that will be returned in the future (such as MMX samples).
The optical properties, electronic structure and morphology of thin films of the polymer donor PTB7-Th blended with either the fullerene acceptor PC70BM or the non-fullerene acceptor ZY-4Cl were systematically investigated to evaluate their annealing-induced evolution. Thin films were characterized using UV–Vis–NIR absorption spectroscopy, spectroscopic ellipsometry, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and nano-IR analysis. In situ stepwise thermal annealing revealed distinct changes in absorption edge parameters, indicating thermally induced modifications in the electronic structure of the blend films. Ellipsometric analysis showed that elevated temperatures significantly affect the refractive index and extinction coefficient spectra. AFM measurements demonstrated markedly different surface morphology evolution for the two blend systems, with pronounced needle-shaped crystallites formation observed in PTB7-Th:ZY-4Cl films after annealing at 100 °C. Nano-IR characterization identified these crystallites as predominantly PTB7-Th, indicating phase separation driven by thermal treatment. The combined optical and structural results reveal distinct annealing-induced changes in the blend. Finally, BHJ solar cells, based on PTB7-Th:PC70BM and PTB7-Th:ZY-4Cl active layers, were fabricated, and their photovoltaic response was demonstrated.