Clean and renewable energy development is becoming frontier research for future energy resources, as renewable energy offers sustainable and environmentally friendly alternatives to non-renewable sources such as fossil fuels. Among various renewable energy sources, tremendous progress has been made in converting solar energy to electric energy by developing efficient organic photovoltaics. Organic photovoltaic materials comprising conjugated polymers (CP) with narrow optical energy gaps are promising candidates for developing sustainable sources due to their potentially lower manufacturing costs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) can provide a clean energy solution to growing energy demands. In order to have devices of high performance, sensitizers that are able to absorb in the near-infrared region (NIR) are needed. Stronger electron donors are needed for intramolecular charge-transfer sensitizers to access longer wavelength photons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs fluorescence bioimaging has increased in popularity, there have been numerous reports on designing organic fluorophores with desirable properties amenable to perform this task, specifically fluorophores with emission in the near-infrared II (NIR-II) region. One such strategy is to utilize the donor-π-acceptor-π-donor approach (D-π-A-π-D), as this allows for control of the photophysical properties of the resulting fluorophores through modulation of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy levels. Herein, we illustrate the properties of thienothiadiazole (TTD) as an effective acceptor moiety in the design of NIR emissive fluorophores.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomaterials play a crucial role in tissue engineering as a functional replacement, regenerative medicines, supportive scaffold for guided tissue growth, and drug delivery devices. The term biomaterial refers to metals, ceramics, and polymers account for the vast majority. In the case of polymers, hydrogels have emerged as active materials for an immense variety of applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSmall molecular organic fluorophores have garnered significant interest because of their indispensable use in fluorescence imaging (FI) and optoelectronic devices. Herein, we designed triphenylamine (TPA)-capped donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D)-based fluorophores having a variation at the heterocyclic donor (D) units, 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (), furan (), thiophene (), and 1-methyl-1-pyrrole (), with isoindigo as the core electron acceptor (A) unit. Synthesis of these fluorophores () resulted in four symmetrical dye molecules: , , , and , where TPA functioned as a terminal unit and a secondary electron donor group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApplications of self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on surfaces are prevalent in modern technologies and drives the need for a better understanding of the surface domain architecture of SAMs. To explore structural interaction at the interface between gold surfaces and a hydroxyl-terminated alkanethiol, 11-hydroxy-1-undecanethiol, (C11TH) we have employed a combined computational and experimental approach. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were carried out on the thiol-gold interface using both the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof (PBE) and van der Waals (optB86b) density functionals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTen novel fullerene-derivatives (FDs) of C and C had been designed as acceptor for polymer solar cell (PSC) by employing the quantitative structure-property relationship (QSPR) model, which was developed strategically with a reasonably big pool of experimental power conversion efficiency (PCE) data. The QSPR model was checked and validated with stringent parameter and reliability of predicted PCE values of all designed FDs. They were assessed by the applicability domain (AD) and process randomization test.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeven 'lead' dye-sensitizers from Tetrahydroquinoline (THQ) family were proposed and designed based on the structural attributes via quantitative-structure property relationship (QSPR) modeling. They were screened rationally through different computational approaches to explore their potential applications as photosensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Compelling photophysical properties such as electron injection driving force, electron injection time, and dye regeneration were studied for the isolated dyes under the DFT and TD-DFT frameworks.
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