Suchergebnisse

Doping has been proved to be one of the powerful technologies to achieve significant improvement in the performance of organic electronic devices. Herein, we systematically map out the interface properties of solution-processed air-stable n-type (4(1,3-dimethyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzoimidazol-2-yl)phenyl) doping fullerenes and fullerene derivatives and establish a universal energy level alignment scheme for this class of n-doped system. At low doping levels at which the charge-transfer doping induces mainly bound charges, the energy level alignment of the n-doping organic semiconductor can be described by combining integer charger transfer-induced shifts with a so-called double-dipole step. At high doping levels, significant densities of free charges are generated and the charge flows between the organic film and the conducting electrodes equilibrating the Fermi level in a classic "depletion layer" scheme. Moreover, we demonstrate that the model holds for both n- and p-doping of pi-backbone molecules and polymers. With the results, we provide wide guidance for identifying the application of the current organic n-type doping technology in organic electronics. ; Funding Agencies|National Science Foundation of China [11604099]; East China Normal Univeristy; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research [SE13-0060]; Swedish Research Council [2016-05498]; Goran Gustafsson Foundation; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University [2009 00971]

[eng] Fullerenes or Buckyballs are a group of carbon nanoparticles, classified as engineered nanoparticles. The advent of fullerene nanoparticles in commercial, industrial and biomedical applications raises concern about their potential ecological and human health risks. Fullerenes have not been regulated, although the European Commission (European Commission, 2002), the European Parliament (European Parliament, 2008) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 2015) have prioritised legislation on nanomaterials handling and disposal. Given the current lack of studies regarding their presence, fate and behaviour in consumer products and environmental matrices and their associated human and environmental risks it is becoming increasingly important to be able to characterise and quantitate fullerene nanoparticles, especially derivatives, in a wide range of matrix types. To fill these knowledge gaps, one of the objectives of this thesis was the development of analytical methodologies for the determination of pristine and surface modified fullerenes by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to MS (UHPLC-MS) and by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis (NACE) and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) with UV-Vis detection in different environmental matrices (water and sediment samples) and cosmetic products, respectively. In addition, in this thesis the size and shape characterisation of surface modified fullerenes in aqueous solutions of different pH and ionic strength values was studied by combining several techniques (CE, AF4-MALS and TEM). Regarding the analysis of fullerenes, the use of a sub-2 µm C18 column, toluene-methanol as a mobile phase and of APPI ionisation source allowed to develop a UHPLC method coupled to MS/(MS) for the analysis of five pristine (C60-C84) and three surface modified fullerenes (PCBM, PCBB and C60-pyrr) in less than 4.5 min showing high sensitivity and selectivity. Furthermore, the employment of H-SIM mode for pristine fullerenes (mass resolving power >12,500 FWHM), and SRM mode for fullerene derivatives, allowed achieving MLODs lower than most of those previously reported in the literature. For the extraction of the water samples, liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) with toluene and the addition of salt is proposed obtaining recoveries higher than 83 %. For sediments we propose the use of pressurised liquid extraction (PLE) performed at a high extraction temperature (150 °C) using one extraction cycle of 10 min achieving good recoveries (70-92 %). The developed methodology allowed us to report for the first time the presence of C60-pyrr, PCBM and PCBB in sediments (2.0 - 8.5 ng Kg-1 levels) and of PCBM and PCBB in pond water samples (0.1- 5.1 pg L-1 levels). Two CE methods, a non-aqueous (NACE) and a micellar (MECC) method have been developed. LOQs at mg L-1 levels were obtained with both methods making possible their application for the analysis of cosmetic products. Both methods (NACE and MECC) were applied for the quantitation of C60 in cosmetic products and the results are comparable to those obtained by LC-MS (in an anti-aging serum). With respect to the characterisation of fullerene aggregates, the use of AF4-MALS demonstrated that fullerene aqueous solutions contain particles of different aggregation degree in agreement with TEM micrographs. The size determination of the studied compounds by AF4 at different salt concentrations demonstrated that the enhanced aggregation of fullerenes with the increase in the ionic strength could explain the broad, multiple and distorted peaks obtained in MECC which were more obvious at high buffer concentration. The hydrodynamic radii of polyhydroxy-fullerenes increased more than 5 times and those of the carboxy-fullerene derivatives up to 180 nm (3rd peak) (for C60-pyrr tris acid) for 0.1M NaCl. The propensity of fullerenes to aggregate in both aqueous solutions and organic solvent mixtures justify the electrophoretic peak profiles observed in MECC (i.e., broad peaks at high electrolyte concentration) and their higher retention in C18 columns using toluene-acetonitrile compared to toluene-methanol mobile phases (due to the formation of bigger aggregates), respectively. ; [spa] Los fulerenos son cada vez más utilizados en medicina (administración de fármacos), en procesos ambientales (remediación) y en la industria (células solares) debido a sus propiedades estructurales y electrónicas únicas. En este contexto, es importante aumentar el conocimiento actual con respecto a las características, el comportamiento, el destino y la toxicidad de los fulerenos, una nueva clase de contaminantes emergentes orgánicos. Por lo tanto, es cada vez es más importante ser capaz de caracterizar y cuantificar las nanopartículas de fulerenos en una amplia gama de tipos de matriz y para este fin, se necesita el desarrollo de métodos analíticos para su análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo. Además de la determinación de las concentraciones de fulerenos en matrices complejas, se requiere su caracterización en términos de grado de agregación, distribución del tamaño y morfología de la superficie en soluciones acuosas de diferentes características (fuerza iónica y pH) con el fin de proporcionar herramientas para establecer su riesgo. En esta tesis se han establecido metodologías para el análisis de ocho fulerenos en muestras ambientales (agua y sedimentos) por cromatografía líquida acoplada a espectrometría de masas y se ha detectado por la primera vez la presencia de tres derivados de fulerenos. Además, se ha desarollado metodología para el análisis de fulerenos hidrofobicos y solubles en agua mediante la electroforesis capilar en medio no-acuoso (NACE) y la cromatografía capilar electrocinética micelar (MECC) y los metodos se han aplicado para la determinación de C60 en productos cosmeticos. Por último, se ha estudiado el comportamiento de agregación de los fulerenos en soluciones acuosas de diferentes características (pHs, fuerzas iónicas) mediante diferentes técnicas (electroforesis capilar (CE), asymetrical flow-field flow fractionation (AF4), microscopia electrónica de transmisión (TEM)). En este contexto se han determinado los tamaños de los agregados formados en las condiciones evaluadas, y la morfología de las partículas.

The growth of a fullerene derivative (PCBM) on top of a layer of a tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) derivative previously deposited on Au(111) has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). The results show that the preferential interaction with the gold substrate induces the exchange of PCBM molecules with the exTTF monolayer, expelling exTTF molecules to the outer surface. This exchange process is forbidden when the thickness of the exTTF layer increases above the monolayer, and the larger surface energy of PCBM leads to the growth of 3D islands ; Our work was supported by the MICINN of Spain (FIS2010-18847, FIS2012-33011), Comunidad de Madrid (NanobiomagnetS2009/MAT-1726), CONSOLIDER-INGENIO on Molecular Nanoscience (CSD2007-00010) and European Union (SMALL PITN-GA- 2009-23884)

Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG ; [Abstract] Organic solar cells incorporating non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) have reached remarkable power conversion efficiencies of over 18%. Unlike fullerene derivatives, NFAs tend to crystallize from solutions, resulting in bulk heterojunctions that include a crystalline acceptor phase. This must be considered in any morphology-function models. Here, it is confirmed that high-performing solution-processed indacenodithienothiophene-based NFAs, i.e., ITIC and its derivatives ITIC-M, ITIC-2F, and ITIC-Th, exhibit at least two crystalline forms. In addition to highly ordered polymorphs that form at high temperatures, NFAs arrange into a low-temperature metastable phase that is readily promoted via solution processing and leads to the highest device efficiencies. Intriguingly, the low-temperature forms seem to feature a continuous network that favors charge transport despite of a poorly order along the π–π stacking direction. As the optical absorption of the structurally more disordered low-temperature phase can surpass that of the more ordered polymorphs while displaying comparable—or even higher—charge transport properties, it is argued that such a packing structure is an important feature for reaching highest device efficiencies, thus, providing guidelines for future materials design and crystal engineering activities. ; This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion/FEDER (under Ref. PGC2018-094620-A-I00 and PGC2018-095411-B-I00, CEX2019-000917-S, and PGC2018-095411-B-100) and the Basque Country Government (Ref. PIBA19-0051). S.M. is grateful to POLYMAT for the doctoral scholarship. The authors thank A. Arbe, A. Alonso-Mateo, and L. Hueso for their support and access to characterization tools. The authors also thank the technical and human support provided by SGIker of UPV/EHU and European funding (ERDF and ESF). GIWAXS experiments were performed at BL11 NCD-SWEET beamline at ALBA Synchrotron (Spain) with the collaboration of ALBA staff. J.M and E.F.-G. acknowledge support through the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, H2020-FETOPEN 01-2018-2020 (FET-Open Challenging Current Thinking), "LION-HEARTED," Grant Agreement No. 828984. J.M and N.S. would like to thank the financial support provided by the IONBIKE RISE project, which received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 823989. N.S., A.K., and A.B. furthermore are grateful to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) for support via Project No. 1905901 within NSF's Division of Materials Research. A.S. and M.C. acknowledge financial support by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program "HEROIC," Grant Agreement No. 638059. This work was partially carried out at Polifab, the micro- and nanotechnology center of the Politecnico di Milano. C.M. thanks the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for funding through the project "Mastering Morphology for Solution-borne Electronics." A.I. thanks MICINN for a Personal Técnico de Apoyo contract (PTA2017-14359-I) and gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Basque Government (Research Groups IT-1175-19) and the MICINN (PGC2018-094548-B-I00, MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE. Funding for open access charge: Universidade da Coruña/CISUG. ; Gobierno Vasco; PIBA19-0051 ; Gobierno Vasco; IT-1175-19 ; Estados Unidos. National Science Foundation; 1905901

We present experimental and theoretical studies of single-molecule conductance through nonplanar fullerocurcuminoid molecular dyads in ambient conditions using the mechanically controllable break junction technique. We show that molecular dyads with bare fullerenes form configurations with conductance features related to different transport channels within the molecules, as identified with filtering and clustering methods. The primary channel corresponds to charge transport through the methylthio-terminated backbone. Additional low-conductance channels involve one backbone side and the fullerene. In fullerenes with four additional equatorial diethyl malonate groups attached to them, the latter transport pathway is blocked. Density functional theory calculations corroborate the experimental observations. In combination with nonequilibrium green functions, the conductance values of the fullerocurcuminoid backbones are found to be similar to those of a planar curcuminoid molecule without a fullerene attached. In the nonplanar fullerocurcuminoid systems, the highest-conductance peak occurs partly through space, compensating for the charge delocalization loss present in the curcuminoid system. ; European Commission (COST Action MOLSPIN) CA1S128 European Commission (EU RISE (DAFNEOX) project) SEP-210165479 Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT) CONICYT FONDECYT 1181080 1161775 1170524 Fondequip EQM140055 EQM180009 NLHPC ECM -02 MICIIN PGC2018-093863-B-C21 Maria de Maeztu Excellence grant MDM-2017-0767 Generalitat de Catalunya 2017SGR1289 2017SGR1277 Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Spanish Government M.AT2016-778S2-C2-1-R Severo Ochoa Program for Centers of Excellence in RD SEV-2015-0496 European Research Council (ERC) 724981 National Science Foundation (NSF) CHE-1801317 The Welch Foundation AH-0033

Fullerenes or Buckyballs are a group of carbon nanoparticles, classified as engineered nanoparticles. The advent of fullerene nanoparticles in commercial, industrial and biomedical applications raises concern about their potential ecological and human health risks. Fullerenes have not been regulated, although the European Commission (European Commission, 2002), the European Parliament (European Parliament, 2008) and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 2015) have prioritised legislation on nanomaterials handling and disposal. Given the current lack of studies regarding their presence, fate and behaviour in consumer products and environmental matrices and their associated human and environmental risks it is becoming increasingly important to be able to characterise and quantitate fullerene nanoparticles, especially derivatives, in a wide range of matrix types. To fill these knowledge gaps, one of the objectives of this thesis was the development of analytical methodologies for the determination of pristine and surface modified fullerenes by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled to MS (UHPLC-MS) and by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis (NACE) and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) with UV-Vis detection in different environmental matrices (water and sediment samples) and cosmetic products, respectively. In addition, in this thesis the size and shape characterisation of surface modified fullerenes in aqueous solutions of different pH and ionic strength values was studied by combining several techniques (CE, AF4-MALS and TEM). Regarding the analysis of fullerenes, the use of a sub-2 µm C18 column, toluene-methanol as a mobile phase and of APPI ionisation source allowed to develop a UHPLC method coupled to MS/(MS) for the analysis of five pristine (C60-C84) and three surface modified fullerenes (PCBM, PCBB and C60-pyrr) in less than 4.5 min showing high sensitivity and selectivity. Furthermore, the employment of H-SIM mode for pristine fullerenes (mass resolving power ...

In the last 30 years, fullerene-based materials have become popular building blocks for devices with a broad range of applications. Among fullerene derivatives, endohedral metallofullerenes (EMFs, M@Cx) have been widely studied due to their unique properties and reactivity. For real applications, fullerenes and EMFs must be exohedrally functionalized. It has been shown that encapsulated metal cations facilitate the Diels-Alder reaction in fullerenes. Herein, we quantum mechanically explore the Bingel-Hirsch (BH) addition of ethyl bromomalonate over a series of ion-encapsulated M@C60 (M = , Li+, Na+, K+, Mg+2, Ca+2, and Cl-) to analyze the effect of these ions on the BH addition. Our results show that the incarcerated ion has very important effect on the kinetics and thermodynamics of this reaction. Among the systems studied, K+@C60 is the one that leads to the fastest BH reaction, whereas the slowest reaction is given by Cl-@C60 ; This work was supported with funds from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) of Spain (project CTQ2017-85341-P to M.S.), the Spanish government MICINN (project PGC2018-098212-B-C22 to J.M.L), and the Generalitat de Catalunya (project 2017SGR39 to M.S. and J.M.L.). We thank the Spanish government for the predoctoral grant to P.B.-S. (FPU17/02058)

The aim of the work is to evaluate possible use of 2-[[4-(bis(2-trityloxyethyl)amino)phenyl]methylene]indane-1,3-dione (DMABI-6Ph) as light absorbing material for solar cells. DMABI-6Ph is a perspective material due to its good photoelectrical, thermal and chemical properties. The main advantage of DMABI-6Ph is its ability to form amorphous films by wet-casting methods thus allowing using the compound in organic solar cells made from solution. For now most popular materials for solution processable solar cells are polymer P3HT and fullerene derivative PCBM, but lot of investigations are in the field of new low molecular weight materials to replace the polymer. Photoelectrical measurements were made to determine molecule ionization and electron affinity levels of DMABI-6Ph. Difference of 2.06 eV between DMABI-6Ph ionization level and PCBM affinity level was obtained. Accordingly open circuit voltage of system DMABI-6Ph:PCBM was measured up to 0.78 V. The best power conversation efficiency was 0.11 % for the DMABI-6Ph:PCBM mass fraction 2:1. Limiting factor for high efficiency could be low charge carrier mobility which can be increase by additional DMABI-6Ph modification. ; European Social Fund Project No. 2013/0045/1DP/1.1.1.2.0/13/APIA/VIAA/018; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART²

Perovskite solar cells are promising candidates for next-generation photovoltaics. Fullerenes and their derivatives can act as efficient electron transport layers, interfacial modification layers, and trap state passivators in perovskite solar cells, all of which play an important role in increasing efficiency, reducing current hysteresis, and enhancing device stability. Herein, recent progress in the use of fullerenes and their derivatives in perovskite solar cells is reviewed, with a particular emphasis on fullerene chemical structures that affect device performance. Potential fullerene candidates that could further improve device performance and stability are also discussed. ; Funding Agencies|973 Project [2014CB845601]; National Science Foundation of China [U1205111, 21390390, 21721001, 51502252]; Swedish Research Council (VR) [330-2014-6433]; Swedish Research Council (FORMAS) [942-2015-1253]; European Commission Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions [INCA 600398]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU) [2009-00971]; China Scholarship Council [201706315013]

The functionalization of fullerenes helps to modulate their electronic and physicochemical properties, generating fullerene derivatives with promising features for practical applications. Herein, DFT is used to explore the attachment of a cyclohexadiene ring to C60 through a rhodium-catalyzed intermolecular [2+2+2] cycloaddition of C60 and acetylene. All potential reaction paths are analyzed and it can be concluded that the [2+2+2] cycloaddition of C60 and two acetylene molecules catalyzed by [RhCl(PPh3)3], yielding a cyclohexadiene ring fused to a [6,6] bond of C60, is energetically feasible ; Funded by: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad. Grant Number: CTQ2014-54306-P; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO). Grant Number: RYC2012-11112 Generalitat de Catalunya. Grant Numbers: 2014SGR931, ICREA Academia 2014 European Union. Grant Number: UNGI10-4E-801

Inkjet printing (IJP) of polymer solar cells is ideal for small-area off-grid electronics with low power consumption. However, IJP is quite a complex technique compared with techniques such as spin coating or doctor blading. The IJP of polymer blends is reported based on ITIC derivatives as non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) using non-halogenated solvents. The results show that fluorination of NFA is essential to form highly stable inks in o-xylene, because ITIC has significantly insufficient solubility compared with ITIC-4F. The importance of tetralin as a multifunctional co-solvent for printing highly efficient PM6:ITIC-4F blends is demonstrated, as even at very low concentrations, tetralin not only improves ink jettability and open nozzle time, but also improves drying behavior of the blend layer, resulting in blends with homogeneous micro- and nanoscale morphology. The resulting solar cells using inkjet-printed polymer blends show a maximum efficiency of 10.1%. Moreover, IJP produces significant changes in the nanoscale and microscale morphology. In particular, the formation of a thin PM6 capping layer on the blend surface along with improved phase separation and crystallinity in both the donor and acceptor greatly reduces the recombination of charge carriers in thick blends, making inkjet-printed photoactive films very promising for industrial applications. ; P.P., J.-J.S., and J.A. received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 713750. W.K., M.P., and R.R.S. acknowledge funding by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg, through the HEiKA materials research center FunTECH-3D (MWK, 33-753-30-20/3/3). P.P. and J.A. further acknowledge support of the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, A*MIDEX (No. ANR-11-IDEX- 0001-02), and the Investissements d'Avenir project funded by the French Government, managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR). This work has also been carried out ...

The present work assesses improved carrier injection in organic field-effect transistors by contact doping and provides fundamental insight into the multiple impacts that the dopant/semiconductor interface details have on the long-term and thermal stability of devices. We investigate donor [1]benzothieno[3,2-b]-[1]benzothiophene (BTBT) derivatives with one and two octyl side chains attached to the core, therefore constituting asymmetric (BTBT-C8) and symmetric (C8-BTBT-C8) molecules, respectively. Our results reveal that films formed out of the asymmetric BTBT-C8 expose the same alkyl-terminated surface as the C8-BTBT-C8 films do. In both cases, the consequence of depositing fluorinated fullerene (C60F48) as a molecular p-dopant is the formation of C60F48 crystalline islands decorating the step edges of the underlying semiconductor film surface. We demonstrate that local work function changes along with a peculiar nanomorphology lead to the double beneficial effect of lowering the contact resistance and providing long-term and enhanced thermal stability of the devices. ; This work has been supported by the Spanish Government under projects MAT2016-77852-C2-1-R (AEI/FEDER, UE), FANCY CTQ2016-80030-R, and "Severo Ochoa" Program for Centers of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0496). We acknowledge the GC recognitions 2017-SGR668 and 2017- SGR918 and the Networking Research Center on Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). A.B. thanks the Spanish Government financial support through BES-2016-077519 FPI fellowship. This work has been carried out within the framework of the doctoral program (Ph.D.) of Material Science (Department of Physics) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). O.S. acknowledges the support of the Israel Ministry of Science, the Center for Absorption in Science of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, and the Committee for Planning and budgeting of the Council for Higher Education under the framework of the KAMEA Program. J.L. acknowledges the support of the Chinese Council for Ph.D. fellowship. We acknowledge The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and CSIC for the provision of measurements using the BM25-SpLine beamline. ; Peer reviewed

This work is supported by European Research Council (ERC) European Union Horizon 2020 (639846). The authors sincerely thank Koc University Boron and Advanced Materials Application and Research Center (KABAM) and Koc University Surface Science and Technology Center (KUYTAM) for the use of the facilities. We gratefully acknowledge the Center Research Laboratory at the University of Bayburt for TEM analysis. ; Capacitive charge transfer at the electrode/electrolyte interface is a biocompatible mechanism for the stimulation of neurons. Although quantum dots showed their potential for photostimulation device architectures, dominant photoelectrochemical charge transfer combined with heavy-metal content in such architectures hinders their safe use. In this study, we demonstrate heavy-metal-free quantum dot-based nano-heterojunction devices that generate capacitive photoresponse. For that, we formed a novel form of nano-heterojunctions using type-II InP/ZnO/ZnS core/shell/shell quantum dot as the donor and a fullerene derivative of PCBM as the electron acceptor. The reduced electron-hole wavefunction overlap of 0.52 due to type-II band alignment of the quantum dot and the passivation of the trap states indicated by the high photoluminescence quantum yield of 70% led to the domination of photoinduced capacitive charge transfer at an optimum donor-acceptor ratio. This study paves the way toward safe and efficient nanoengineered quantum dot-based next-generation photostimulation devices. ; European Research Council (ERC) 639846