Chun‐Guey Wu

A high molar extinction coefficient heteroleptic ruthenium complex, incorporating an electron-rich hexylthio-terminal chain, has been synthesized and demonstrated as an efficient sensitizer for dye-sensitized solar cells. With this new sensitizer excellent power conversion efficiency is 11.5% and 4.7% obtained under an irradiation of full sunlight (air mass 1.5 global) in combination with a volatility electrolyte and solid state hole transporting material, respectively. The devices with low volatility electrolyte showed good stability under visible-light soaking at 60 degrees C during 1000 h of accelerated tests.

Conducting filaments of polyaniline have been prepared in the 3-nanometer-wide hexagonal channel system of the aluminosilicate MCM-41. Adsorption of aniline vapor into the dehydrated host, followed by reaction with peroxydisulfate, leads to encapsulated polyaniline filaments. Spectroscopic data show that the filaments are in the protonated emeraldine salt form, and chromatography indicates chain lengths of several hundred aniline rings. The filaments have significant conductivity while encapsulated in the channels, as measured by microwave absorption at 2.6 gigahertz. This demonstration of conjugated polymers with mobile charge carriers in nanometer channels represents a step toward the design of nanometer electronic devices.

The inverted CH₃NH₃PbI₃ cell fabricated using a two-step method with H₂O as an additive in a PbI₂ solution exhibited an extremely high FF of 85%.

A high quality thick (500 nm) CH₃NH₃PbI₃perovskite absorber with a horizontal grain size up to 3 μm and a lateral size equal to the film thickness was prepared by the synergistic effect of a H₂O additive and DMF vapor treatment<italic>via</italic>a two-step spin coating method.