Novel organic dyes (MK dyes), which have a carbazole derivative as an electron donor and a cyanoacrylic acid moiety (dC(sCtN)COOH) as an electron acceptor and an anchoring group, connected with n-hexyl-substituted oligothiophenes as a π-conjugated system, were designed and synthesized for application in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), which are one of the promising molecular photovoltaics. The photovoltaic performance of the DSSCs based on MK dyes markedly depends on the molecular structure of the dyes in terms of the number and position of n-hexyl chains and the number of thiophene moieties. Retardation of charge recombination caused by the existence of n-hexyl chains linked to the thiophene groups resulted in an increase in electron lifetime. As a consequence, an improvement of open-circuit photovoltage (V oc ) and hence the solar-to-electric power conversion efficiency (η) of DSSCs was achieved upon addition of n-hexyl chains to the thiophene groups. In addition, the adsorption condition (amount of dye molecules and/or dye aggregate thickness) on the nanoporous TiO 2 electrode, depending on the number of hexyl chains, strongly affected the performance of DSSCs. A larger amount and/or thicker aggregate of dye molecules brought about longer electron lifetime, which resulted in higher V oc , and slower diffusion of I 3 ions in the nanoporous TiO 2 electrode, which led to lower short-circuit photocurrent (J sc ) and fill factor (FF). In the result of thorough investigation on the series of MK dyes, a DSSC based on MK-2 consisting of n-hexyl-substituted quarter-thiophene produced 8.3% of η (J sc ) 15.22 mA cm -2 , V oc ) 0.73 V, and FF ) 0.75) under 100 mW cm -2 simulated AM1.5G solar irradiation.

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Surface structures of rutile TiO(2) (011) are determined by a combination of noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM), scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), and density functional calculations. The surface exhibits rowlike (n x 1) structures running along the [01] direction. Microfaceting missing-row structural models can explain the experimental results very well. Calculated images for NC-AFM and STM are in good agreement with the experimental results. A decrease of the density of dangling bonds stabilizes the surface energy, which results in the microfaceting missing-row reconstructions.

Atomic and electronic structures of the SrTiO3(100)-(square root of 5 x square root of 5) - R26.6 degrees surface are studied by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and noncontact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM). Instead of the well established oxygen vacancy model, it is found that a structural model, consisting of an ordered Sr adatom at the oxygen fourfold site of a TiO2 terminated layer, can explain the experimental results very well. We theoretically simulate the model cluster with the first-principles total-energy calculation. Calculated density of states and images for STM and NC-AFM are in good agreement with the experimental results.