Collaborative Research: The Self-Assembly of Functional Nanostructures

地球表面一小时吸收的太阳能总量几乎相当于全球一年的能源消耗。然而，由于有限的生产能力和太阳能电池的高制造成本，太阳能目前对这些能量需求的贡献非常小。在这项工作中开发的有机纳米材料有可能作为有机太阳能电池的组成部分，预计制造成本较低，并可广泛用于各种应用。这项由NSF支持的研究提供了对纳米材料内能量传输机制的深入了解，并有助于开发新的能源转换技术，以产生、储存和分配能量。除了为纳米材料的建设发展战略，该项目介绍了一个不同的学生群体，以跨学科的科学，努力让他们接触到新兴的新技术的机会过多。大分子，超分子和纳米化学（MSN）计划支持教授乔恩R。俄亥俄州州立大学的Parquette和大卫A. Modarelli在阿克伦大学。这项工作的长期目标是建立一种可靠的策略，将小的光电发色团组装成具有可控发色团间相互作用的高纵横比纳米结构。具体而言，研究人员正在研究自组装纳米结构的设计和构建，该纳米结构包含电子传输通道中具有多发色团梯度的双连续供体/受体异质结。这些纳米材料进一步研究使用合奏和单分子飞秒光谱技术，以关联的性质和类型的纳米结构内的分子间相互作用与相应的电子性质。这些研究将有助于整合纳米级有机结构的设计和结构及其相应的电荷/能量传输特性。

The total solar energy absorbed by the surface of the earth in one hour is nearly equivalent to annual global energy consumption. However, solar power currently contributes very little to these energy requirements due to limited production capacity and the high manufacturing costs of solar cells. The organic nanomaterials developed in this work have the potential to serve as components of organic solar cells, which are expected to be less expensive to manufacture and more broadly useful for a wide range of applications. This NSF-supported research provides insight into the mechanisms of energy transport within nanoscale materials and contributes to the development of new energy conversion technologies to generate, store and distribute energy. Beyond developing strategies for the construction of nanoscale materials, this project introduces a diverse group of students to interdisciplinary science in an effort to expose them to the plethora of opportunities in emerging new technologies.The Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry (MSN) Program supports the work of Professors Jon R. Parquette at the Ohio State University and David A. Modarelli at the University of Akron. The long-term goal of this work is to establish a reliable strategy to assemble small, optoelectronic chromophores into high-aspect-ratio nanostructures with controllable inter-chromophore interactions. Specifically, the researchers are investigating the design and construction of self-assembled, nanostructures containing bicontinuous donor/acceptor heterojunctions with multichromophore gradients in the electron transport channel. These nanomaterials are further studied using ensemble and single-molecule femtosecond spectroscopic techniques to correlate the nature and type of intermolecular interactions within the nanostructures with the corresponding electronic properties. These studies should help to integrate the design and structure of nanoscale organic architectures with their corresponding charge/energy transport properties.