Speaker: Monica C. So, CSU Chico
Program Description:
Optimizing the molecular structures of organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials is one of the most effective methods to boost power conversion efficiencies. Extensive OPV research has thus focused on the development of materials and architectures that efficiently harvest light and energy and transport charges to separate electrodes. However, there are four major challenges in improving OPV technologies: (a) poor light harvesting, (b) inefficient exciton splitting into holes and electrons, (c) increased recombination of separated charges at the donor/acceptor interface and (d) inefficient collection of charges at the active layer/electrode interface. In this presentation, we introduce our approaches to address these key challenges, using metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), “nanosponges” which are synthetically and chemical programmable nanoarchitectures and processable onto industrially relevant substrates. The structure-property relationships generated from our fundamental research will highlight a more straightforward design strategy for experimentalists in this field and be particularly impactful in cases where OPV materials exhibit low efficiency due in part to disordered donor-acceptor networks.
