A heat capacity model of T dependence for quantum dots.

This article addresses the heat capacity of quantum dots (QDs) using density functional theory (DFT). By analyzing the evolution of phonon density of states and heat capacity as CdSe clusters grow from a molecular cluster into larger quantum confined solids, we have shown that their heat capacity does not fit very well with the Debye T model. We observed that the number of phonon modes, which is discrete, increases as the particles grow, and the dispersion relation shows a quadratic behavior in contrast to the bulk solids whose dispersion relation is linear and equal to the sound velocity.

Humidity versus photo-stability of metal halide perovskite films in a polymer matrix.

Despite the high efficiency of over 21% reported for emerging thin film perovskite solar cells, one of the key issues prior to their commercial deployment is to attain their long term stability under ambient and outdoor conditions. The instability in perovskite is widely conceived to be humidity induced due to the water solubility of its initial precursors, which leads to decomposition of the perovskite crystal structure; however, we note that humidity alone is not the major degradation factor and it is rather the photon dose in combination with humidity exposure that triggers the instability. In our experiment, which is designed to decouple the effect of humidity and light on perovskite degradation, we investigate the shelf-lifetime of CH3NH3PbI3 films in the dark and under illumination under high humidity conditions (Rel.

On the missing links in quantum dot solar cells: a DFT study on fluorophore oxidation and reduction processes in sensitized solar cells.

The possibility of achieving many electrons per absorbed photon of sufficient energy by quantum dots (QDs) drives the motivation to build high performance quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs). Although performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs), with similar device configuration as that of QDSCs, has significantly improved in the last two decades QDSCs are yet to demonstrate impressive device performances despite the remarkable features of QDs as light harvesters. We investigated the fundamental differences in the optical properties of QDs and dyes using DFT calculations to get insights on the inferior performance of QDSCs.