Lead-free hybrid perovskites for photovoltaics

• Oleksandr Stroyuk

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 2209–2235, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.207

• with an outlook highlighting the most promising strategies for future progress of photovoltaic systems based on lead-free perovskite compounds. Keywords: light harvesting; low-toxic materials; organo-inorganic perovskites; solar cells; Review Introduction The field of photovoltaics and photochemical

• light harvesting using nanocrystalline semiconductor materials is a thriving field of research that intersects physics, physical and material chemistry, photonics and photochemistry. The investment in photovoltaic solar cells has increased among other sustainable sources of electricity, whereby the

• the HP composition [92]. By simultaneously tuning the composition of Pb–Sn and halide components, a solar light absorber was designed with a bandgap of 1.35 eV ideal for the solar light harvesting. The inverted cells based on MAPb0.5Sn0.5(I0.8Br0.2)3 demonstrated PCEs of up to 17.63% [70]. A

Multimodal noncontact atomic force microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy investigations of organolead tribromide perovskite single crystals

• Yann Almadori,
• David Moerman,
• Jaume Llacer Martinez,
• Philippe Leclère and
• Benjamin Grévin

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1695–1704, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.161

• perovskites (RMX3, where R = methylammonium or formamidinium, M = Pb or Sn, and X = halogen) have become a new platform for the development of next-generation light harvesting and optoelectronic devices in the past years [1]. Indeed, they exhibit an exceptional combination of optoelectronic properties

Sheet-on-belt branched TiO₂(B)/rGO powders with enhanced photocatalytic activity

• Huan Xing,
• Wei Wen and
• Jin-Ming Wu

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1550–1557, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.146

• incorporation of graphene is effective to improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 because of the increased adsorption capacity and enhanced charge separation [26]. Meanwhile, growing branches on one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 makes full use of the free space on the 1D nanostructures and increases the light

• harvesting efficiency, which also contributes to increased photocatalytic activity [22][27]. Herein, we report a novel approach to synthesize branched TiO2(B) nanobelts incorporated at the same time with reduced graphene oxide (rGO). The unique sheet-on-belt nanostructure demonstrates a high specific surface

Cr(VI) remediation from aqueous environment through modified-TiO₂-mediated photocatalytic reduction

• Rashmi Acharya,
• Brundabana Naik and
• Kulamani Parida

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1448–1470, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.137

• , graphene support on TiO2 results in higher transport of photogenerated charge carriers, enrichment of light harvesting, increase of surface active sites and chemical stability of photocatalysts, which are essentially needed for a good photocatalyst [117][118][119]. The transport of electrons is facilitated

• recombination of electron–hole pairs instead of providing an electron pathway [129][130] and maximizes the light harvesting competition between TiO2 and RGO [128]. Zhao et al. prepared TiO2–RGO composites with large specific surface area (104.9 m2/g) [131]. At low pH, the large surface of the composite becomes

• spheres have also been prepared by Chen et al. A coating of an ultrathin TiO2 layer on CdS nanoparticles imparts good light harvesting properties, enhanced adsorption capacity, effective charge transport and longer lifetime of excitons, for which the core–shell spheres exhibited higher efficiency for

Computational exploration of two-dimensional silicon diarsenide and germanium arsenide for photovoltaic applications

• Sri Kasi Matta,
• Chunmei Zhang,
• Yalong Jiao,
• Anthony O'Mullane and
• Aijun Du

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 1247–1253, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.116

• SiAs2 and GeAs2 as promising light harvesting semiconductor materials for solar cell applications. The extraction of a monolayer of these materials is likely to be feasible by mechanical exfoliation. Moreover, the calculated phonon spectrum reveals its high dynamical stability for both materials

Perovskite-structured CaTiO₃ coupled with g-C₃N₄ as a heterojunction photocatalyst for organic pollutant degradation

• Ashish Kumar,
• Christian Schuerings,
• Suneel Kumar,
• Ajay Kumar and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 671–685, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.62

• -twin microscope operating at 200 kV (accelerating voltage). Elemental mapping was also carried out by using the same instrument in order to study the presence and spatial distribution of expected elements in all prepared samples. The light harvesting ability of the resultant samples as a dry-pressed

• area. Moreover, these results also show that the CTCN heterojunction is not simply a physical mixture of separate CT and g-C3N4 entities [49]. Optical properties study The band gap energy of a material is directly related to its light harvesting capability. To gain insight into the band structure of

• irradiation under sunlight ≈47% degradation of BPA could be observed using the CTCN heterojunction as catalyst, while the control experiments performed without any catalyst showed no degradation. Thus, it can be concluded that the as-prepared heterojunction photocatalyst has favorable solar light harvesting

Mechanistic insights into plasmonic photocatalysts in utilizing visible light

• Kah Hon Leong,
• Azrina Abd Aziz,
• Lan Ching Sim,
• Pichiah Saravanan,
• Min Jang and
• Detlef Bahnemann

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 628–648, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.59

• coupling of plasmonic metals (Au and Ag) with semiconductors. Recent reports found that plasmonic metals can be utilised to motivate direct photocatalysis where both light harvesting and activation of reactants take place on the plasmonic metals. It is observed that, unlike semiconductors, the

Sugarcane juice derived carbon dot–graphitic carbon nitride composites for bisphenol A degradation under sunlight irradiation

• Lan Ching Sim,
• Jing Lin Wong,
• Chen Hong Hak,
• Jun Yan Tai,
• Kah Hon Leong and
• Pichiah Saravanan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 353–363, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.35

• semiconductor g-C3N4 possesses visible light harvesting properties due to its narrow band gap energy (≈2.7 eV) [15]. Thus g-C3N4 has emerged as a promising polymeric semiconductor for photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) [16][17][18][19][20], hydrogen evolution [21][22][23][24][25], oxidation of NO

• structure [31] and the hydrogenation of g-C3N4 [32] could be an alternative to increase the light-harvesting ability and charge separation efficiency. Our group has reported the self-modification of g-C3N4 structures using alkaline [28] and acid treatment [29] to overcome the limitations of g-C3N4. Despite

• the removal of BPA, mainly because the CDs act as a photosensitizer to extend the light harvesting region. Results and Discussion Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) Figure 1a shows a field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) image

Review on optofluidic microreactors for artificial photosynthesis

• Xiaowen Huang,
• Jianchun Wang,
• Tenghao Li,
• Jianmei Wang,
• Min Xu,
• Weixing Yu,
• Abdel El Abed and
• Xuming Zhang

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2018, 9, 30–41, doi:10.3762/bjnano.9.5

• (Figure 1C) contains numerous thylakoids. On the thylakoid membrane, the natural light-harvesting antenna complexes, photosystem II (PS II, P680) and photosystem I (PS I, P700), capture the photons and regenerate the coenzyme for carbohydrates synthesis (Figure 1D). However, in APS, sunlight is used to

• interface, many defects are easily aggregated, causing the energy levels to be quasi-continuous for the ohmic contact. Besides, the biomimetic or bioinspired strategy showed the most interesting results. Zhou et al. reported a light-harvesting antenna-network inspired polymeric semiconductor-based hybrid

• nano-system in which water and CO2 were catalyzed to form H2 and CO in this integrated system [66]. Jiang et al. showed a thylakoid-inspired multishell g-C3N4 nanocapsule with orderly stacked nanostructures, which exhibited enhanced visible-light harvesting and electron-transfer properties for high

Robust nanobubble and nanodroplet segmentation in atomic force microscope images using the spherical Hough transform

• Yuliang Wang,
• Tongda Lu,
• Xiaolai Li,
• Shuai Ren and
• Shusheng Bi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 2572–2582, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.257

• light harvesting [11], adsorb onto nanocrystal and microcrystal surfaces for direct heterogeneous engineering [12], and help functional oil deposition from emulsions [13]. NBs and NDs can also act as templates for nanomaterial engineering, such as assembling nanoparticles into nanorings [14], generating

Three-in-one approach towards efficient organic dye-sensitized solar cells: aggregation suppression, panchromatic absorption and resonance energy transfer

• Jayita Patwari,
• Samim Sardar,
• Bo Liu,
• Peter Lemmens and
• Samir Kumar Pal

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 1705–1713, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.171

• the effective performance of the device [20][21]. The control of the uptake of different dyes, the prevention of unwanted reactions and unfavorable electron–hole recombination [22] affect the device performance. FRET has been proposed to be a more useful tool to achieve strong light harvesting over a

• reported in our earlier publications [31]. SQ2 is a commercially available NIR-absorbing dye that has been receiving growing attention in the field of DSSCs due to its light-harvesting ability in the NIR region [32][33]. From the spectral overlap between the absorption of SQ2 and emission of PPIX and from

• major reasons for the enhanced light-harvesting over the entire solar spectrum. PPIX–SQ2 co-sensitized DSSCs were found to be more efficient compared to SQ2-sensitized DSSCs prepared using the optimum concentration of the well-known co-adsorbent chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA). The wavelength-dependent

Performance of colloidal CdS sensitized solar cells with ZnO nanorods/nanoparticles

• Anurag Roy,
• Partha Pratim Das,
• Mukta Tathavadekar,
• Sumita Das and
• Parukuttyamma Sujatha Devi

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 210–221, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.23

• agglomeration forms more interparticle gaps. This leads to the higher possibility of electron recombination and entrapment resulting in poor photovoltaic performance for particles. On the contrary, the multioriented 1D ZnO nanorods promote better light harvesting and faster electron injection, resulting in

• nanoparticles as a blocking layer for better CdS sensitizing and nanorods as a scattering layer for pronounced light harvesting [31][32][41][42]. A significant enhancement in the photovoltaic performance has been noticed for the ZnO-P+R based cell exhibiting an efficiency of 1.06% (Figure 7), which is

• of the ZnO-P+R based cell where ZnO-P acts as a blocking layer for better CdS sensitizing and ZnO-R has been introduced as a scattering layer for pronounced light harvesting. (a) Powder X-ray diffraction pattern of the synthesized cubic CdS powder along with standard JCPDS card no. 42-1411. (b

Tunable plasmons in regular planar arrays of graphene nanoribbons with armchair and zigzag-shaped edges

• Cristian Vacacela Gomez,
• Michele Pisarra,
• Mario Gravina and
• Antonello Sindona

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2017, 8, 172–182, doi:10.3762/bjnano.8.18

• been attracting significant interest, due their capability to couple with light and other charged particles, thus paving the way to novel applications in a wide range of technologies, as diverse as biosensing, light harvesting or quantum information [1][2][3][4][5]. On more fundamental grounds, plasmon

Role of RGO support and irradiation source on the photocatalytic activity of CdS–ZnO semiconductor nanostructures

• Suneel Kumar,
• Rahul Sharma,
• Vipul Sharma,
• Gurunarayanan Harith,
• Vaidyanathan Sivakumar and
• Venkata Krishnan

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1684–1697, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.161

• attractive photocatalytic material for visible-light harvesting due to the narrow band gap (2.42 eV) [23]. But fast recombination of photo generated charge carriers and their aggregation to form large particles, limits the photocatalytic activity of CdS nanostructures [24]. Once these structures are coupled

Photocurrent generation in carbon nanotube/cubic-phase HfO₂ nanoparticle hybrid nanocomposites

• Protima Rauwel,
• Augustinas Galeckas,
• Martin Salumaa,
• Frédérique Ducroquet and
• Erwan Rauwel

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 1075–1085, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.101

• hybrid system can be used as a flexible nanodevice for light harvesting applications. Keywords: carbon nanotubes; HfO2; nanoparticles; photocurrent; Introduction Nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as promising candidates for many applications due to their unique electronic, optical and magnetic

Novel roles for well-known players: from tobacco mosaic virus pests to enzymatically active assemblies

• Claudia Koch,
• Fabian J. Eber,
• Carlos Azucena,
• Alexander Förste,
• Stefan Walheim,
• Thomas Schimmel,
• Alexander M. Bittner,
• Holger Jeske,
• Hartmut Gliemann,
• Sabine Eiben,
• Fania C. Geiger and
• Christina Wege

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 613–629, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.54

• , batteries, photoelectrochemical cells or environmental remediation [63][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113], as scaffolds for the display of reporter dyes, nanoparticles or contrast agents such as gadolinium complexes, for light harvesting

Rigid multipodal platforms for metal surfaces

• Michal Valášek,
• Marcin Lindner and
• Marcel Mayor

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 374–405, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.34

Case studies on the formation of chalcogenide self-assembled monolayers on surfaces and dissociative processes

• Yongfeng Tong,
• Tingming Jiang,
• Azzedine Bendounan,
• Makri Nimbegondi Kotresh Harish,
• Angelo Giglia,
• Stefan Kubsky,
• Fausto Sirotti,
• Luca Pasquali,
• Srinivasan Sampath and
• Vladimir A. Esaulov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2016, 7, 263–277, doi:10.3762/bjnano.7.24

• versatility, intrinsic charge transport behavior with high carrier mobility, and high light harvesting efficiency. Their use includes application in field effect transistors, solar cells and light emitting diodes. A number of studies have been devoted to the assembly of these molecules on metallic electrodes

Atomic scale interface design and characterisation

• Carla Bittencourt,
• Chris Ewels and
• Arkady V. Krasheninnikov

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1708–1711, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.174

• chemical properties and processes occurring at the surface on a nanoscale are of crucial concern. Nanostructured materials show a great application potential in the areas of nanoelectronics, catalysis, and light harvesting/energy storage, an excellent example being the capability of titanate nanoribbons to

Experimental determination of the light-trapping-induced absorption enhancement factor in DSSC photoanodes

• Serena Gagliardi and
• Mauro Falconieri

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 886–892, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.91

• point to determine one of the key photovoltaic parameters of a device. In DSSCs, light harvesting occurs at the photoanode, which is comprised of a monolayer of dye adsorbed onto a mesoporous titania film deposited onto a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer. The absorption spectrum of the dye

• determines the light harvesting properties of the cell, if all other optical phenomena are neglected. However, the most commonly used dye, N719, has a low absorption coefficient for red or longer wavelengths [3]. In practice, the nanostructured, porous titania film scatters the light, so that light trapping

Overview of nanoscale NEXAFS performed with soft X-ray microscopes

• Peter Guttmann and
• Carla Bittencourt

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 595–604, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.61

• nanoelectronics, catalysis, light harvesting and energy storage applications. The newly developed NEXAFS-TXM together with further complementary physicochemical methods and spectroscopic techniques will allow a more complete understanding of the function of low dimensional nanostructures. Schematic layout of

Exploring plasmonic coupling in hole-cap arrays

• Thomas M. Schmidt,
• Maj Frederiksen,
• Vladimir Bochenkov and
• Duncan S. Sutherland

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2015, 6, 1–10, doi:10.3762/bjnano.6.1

• interaction cross-sections for example for light harvesting applications [16]. Interactions between resonances at plasmonic nanostructures in close proximity can significantly alter their optical properties and give spectral tuneability and higher localized fields. These highly interesting interactions can be

Properties of plasmonic arrays produced by pulsed-laser nanostructuring of thin Au films

• Katarzyna Grochowska,
• Katarzyna Siuzdak,
• Peter A. Atanasov,
• Carla Bittencourt,
• Anna Dikovska,
• Nikolay N. Nedyalkov and
• Gerard Śliwiński

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2102–2112, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.219

• nanomaterials exhibiting properties markedly different from their bulk counterparts and shows application possibilities in surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, plasmonic optical circuits, light harvesting and solid state lighting. Results published so far validate the conclusion that the controlled laser

• light harvesting, spintronics and catalysis. The reproducibly functionalized nanostructures are documented by numerous experimental data and the scaling-up potential of this technique is an additional advantage from the perspective of possible applications [6][7][8]. The self-organization of structures

• reduced to below ≈4 fs, the data for the optical field enhancement obtained from SERS and electrochemical measurements of the self-organized Au nanoarrays indicate an application capability in areas of light harvesting [34], ultra-sensitive detection (SERS), spintronics [64] and optical switching [65

Donor–acceptor graphene-based hybrid materials facilitating photo-induced electron-transfer reactions

• Anastasios Stergiou,
• Georgia Pagona and
• Nikos Tagmatarchis

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1580–1589, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.170

• on graphene oxide or reduced graphene oxide The unique and notable features of porphyrins and phthalocyanines as light-harvesting antennas with high extinction coefficients and remarkable redox properties make them promising electron donors to be associated with graphene. The very first approach of

Synthesis of hydrophobic photoluminescent carbon nanodots by using L-tyrosine and citric acid through a thermal oxidation route

• Venkatesh Gude

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 1513–1522, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.164

• quantum yield of the mixture of CNDs [37]. Another interesting optical property of these tyrosine-passivated CNDs is upconversion photoluminescence (UCPL) when irradiated with wavelengths above 500 nm, which is very important for applications as photocatalyst and for light harvesting applications [2][5