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，由于产能有限和太阳能电池的制造成本较高，太阳能发电目前对这些能源需求的贡献很小。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件，预计制造成本较低，并更广泛地用于广泛的应用。这项由美国国家科学基金会资助的研究提供了对纳米材料内能量传输机制的洞察，并有助于开发新的能量转换技术来产生、存储和分配能量。除了开发构建纳米材料的策略外，该项目还向不同的学生群体介绍跨学科科学，努力使他们接触到新兴新技术中的大量机会。大分子、超分子和纳米化学(MSN)项目支持俄亥俄州立大学的乔恩·R·帕奎特教授和阿克伦大学的大卫·A·莫达雷利教授的工作。这项工作的长期目标是建立一种可靠的策略，将小的光电子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。具体地说，研究人员正在研究自组装纳米结构的设计和构建，这些纳米结构包含电子传输通道中具有多个生色团梯度的双连续施主/受主异质结。使用系综和单分子飞秒光谱技术进一步研究了这些纳米材料，以将纳米结构中分子间相互作用的性质和类型与相应的电子性质联系起来。这些研究将有助于将纳米有机结构的设计和结构与其相应的电荷/能量传输特性相结合。

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.