ABSTRACT
New organic dyes comprising carbazole, iminodibenzyl, or phenothiazine moieties, respectively, as the electron donors, and cyanoacetic acid or acrylic acid moieties as the electron acceptors/anchoring groups were synthesized and characterized. The influence of heteroatoms on carbazole, iminodibenzyl and phenothiazine donors, and cyano-substitution on the acid acceptor is evidenced by spectral, electrochemical, photovoltaic experiments, and density functional theory calculations. The phenothiazine dyes show solar-energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency (eta) of 3.46-5.53%, whereas carbazole and iminodibenzyl dyes show eta of 2.43% and 3.49%, respectively.
Subject(s)
Coloring Agents/chemistry , Coloring Agents/chemical synthesis , Electricity , Electrochemistry , Models, Molecular , Models, Theoretical , Molecular Conformation , Solar EnergyABSTRACT
An anomalous aggregation of hairy-rod segments generating nanoscale disklike domains is found to occur in the solution of the semirigid polymer at concentrations well below the threshold lyotropic concentration. These aggregate domains are micellelike in the sense that they exist in equilibrium with a dilute isotropic phase consisting of well dissolved segments. The origin of this aggregation is relevant to the connectivity and amphiphicility of the hairy-rod segments and this process could prevail among semirigid polymers with the disklike domains serving as the nuclei for the development of macroscopic nematic phase as one increases the polymer concentration.