Long-lived photoexcitation probed by photo-induced enhanced Raman spectroscopy: unveiling charge dynamics in Ag-TiO nano-heterojunctions.

This work explores Photo-Induced Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (PIERS) as a tool to investigate charge carrier dynamics in nanometer-thick Ag-TiO heterojunctions with a Schottky barrier. Due to the light-induced charge transfer process at the semiconductor-metal interface, PIERS provides a significant signal enhancement over traditional Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). In turn, a remarkably stable PIERS signal lasting over 10 days after UVC light illumination cannot be explained exclusively by the presence and the lifetime of the induced oxygen vacancies, so other features of the Ag-TiO heterojunction must be responsible for this effect.

Delocalized, asynchronous, closed-loop discovery of organic laser emitters.

Contemporary materials discovery requires intricate sequences of synthesis, formulation, and characterization that often span multiple locations with specialized expertise or instrumentation. To accelerate these workflows, we present a cloud-based strategy that enabled delocalized and asynchronous design-make-test-analyze cycles. We showcased this approach through the exploration of molecular gain materials for organic solid-state lasers as a frontier application in molecular optoelectronics.