Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials for Energy and Opto-Electronic Applications

Abstract

This review presents an overview of the dedicated research directions of the Group for Molecular Engineering of Functional Materials (GMF). This includes molecular engineering aspects of sensitizers constructed from ruthenium complexes, organic molecules, porphyrins and phthalocyanines. Manipulation of organometal trihalide perovskites, and charge transporting materials for high performance perovskite solar cells and photo-detectors are also described. Controlling phosphorescence color, and quantum yields in iridium complexes by tailoring ligands for organic light emitting diodes are demonstrated. Efficient reduction of CO(2) to CO using molecular catalyst on a protected Cu(2)O photocathode, and cost-effective water-splitting cell using a high efficiency perovskite solar cell are presented.

Less is More: Dopant‐Free Hole Transporting Materials for High‐Efficiency Perovskite Solar Cells

“…In this context, we plotted in Figure 19 four charts indicating the potential relationships between the properties of the DF-HTMs and the parameters of the resulted PV devices. [156] Since most of the PSCs are using TiO 2 or PCBM as the ETM, the variation of the ionization potential (IP) of the HTMs can influence the V OC of the devices immensely. Figure 19a shows the relationship between IP of ≈120 DF-HTMs and V OC of the corresponding devices.…”

PbI2–HMPA Complex Pretreatment for Highly Reproducible and Efficient CH3NH3PbI3 Perovskite Solar Cells

“…1 Thanks to the sedulous efforts of device engineering (deposition protocol optimization, composition, solvent etc. ), 2 the certificated photoconversion efficiency (PCE) has been ascending from 15% 3 to 22.1% 4 from 2013 to 2016. With all uniquely desirable features like high absorption coefficients, high charge carrier mobility, and diffusion lengths, as well as solution processability, etc., in one material, the hybrid halide perovskites have become the most promising all-round player for low cost optoelectronics.…”

“…Thanks to the sedulous efforts of device engineering (deposition protocol optimization, composition, solvent etc. ), the certificated photoconversion efficiency (PCE) has been ascending from 15% to 22.1% from 2013 to 2016. With all uniquely desirable features like high absorption coefficients, high charge carrier mobility, and diffusion lengths, as well as solution processability, etc., in one material, the hybrid halide perovskites have become the most promising all-round player for low cost optoelectronics. − Due to the “soft” nature of this hybrid halide perovskite material, the photovoltaic properties of the corresponding PV devices are strongly dependent on the fabrication parameters, − deposition procedures, hole/electron selective contact layers, nanostructure of the scaffold layers, interfacial microstructures, , as well as crystal lattice orientation of the perovskite compounds .…”

Photoelectrochemical Polymerization for Solid‐State Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

“…[9] The DSC technology did become well known worldwide when an impressive PCE of about 8% was obtained for DSCs by O' Regan and Gratzel group in 1991. [10] Subsequently, great efforts have been devoted to the design of new functional materials, [11] engineering of interfaces, [12] optimization of charge dynamics, [13,14] and improvement of PV performance. [15][16][17] The unique idea of DSCs is the introduction of nanostructured metal oxides into the dye-sensitization system, which significantly enhance the light-harvesting efficiency (LHE) of the dyes via greatly increasing the dye loading area by many orders of magnitude.…”

“…[ 9 ] The DSC technology did become well known worldwide when an impressive PCE of about 8% was obtained for DSCs by O’ Regan and Gratzel group in 1991. [ 10 ] Subsequently, great efforts have been devoted to the design of new functional materials, [ 11 ] engineering of interfaces, [ 12 ] optimization of charge dynamics, [ 13,14 ] and improvement of PV performance. [ 15–17 ]…”