CAREER: Bottom-Up Approaches for Precisely Nanostructuring Hybrid Organic/Inorganic Multi-Component Composites

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY This project is aimed at establishing an integrated education and research program that utilizes bottom-up self-assembly approaches borrowed from nature, to construct precisely controlled structures on the nanometer scale and produce organic solar cells with enhanced performance and stability. A basic understanding of the intricate cooperative effects of molecular interactions and material structural parameters that control the self-assembly processes of specially designed molecules will be aimed at. New designs and synthetic methodologies for constructing semiconducting polymers and block copolymers will be developed and a fundamental knowledge base on structure-property relationships of newly prepared materials will be established. These findings will not only advance basic sciences but can also be extended to a wide range of materials and hierarchical nanostructures for organic electronic applications. Students working on these projects will gain interdisciplinary knowledge and skills, which will benefit their future scientific careers. New courses emphasizing materials chemistry and energy research will be developed and refined over the years. An outreach program, designed to attract K-12 students in New Mexico, especially Hispanics and Native Americans, into sciences will be established. These historically underrepresented students will obtain hands-on experiences in chemistry and materials sciences by means of one-day field-trips to the UNM campus. Overall, the proposed activities will not only advance the basic sciences, but also foster the mission to train a diverse group of in skilled scientists who will make positive impacts on society's future. TECHNICAL SUMMARY Nanostructuring organic polymers and organic/inorganic hybrid materials and control of blend morphologies at the molecular level have become the prerequisites for modern electronic devices. To achieve all-around high performance, multiple organic and inorganic entities, each designed for specific functions, are commonly incorporated into a single device. Current state-of-the-art approaches to morphology control in these multi-component systems typically involve physical blending and optimization via thermal/solvent annealing. Such trial-and-error approaches are, however, highly system dependent, lack controllability on the molecular level and generally lead to morphologies at only thermodynamically metastable states. Through the proposed research, a versatile toolbox employing supramolecular chemistry will be created that is capable of precisely nanostructuring multi-component organic/inorganic hybrid materials through cooperation of multiple orthogonal non-covalent interactions. Materials specifically designed for polymer solar cell applications, including organic/organometallic conjugated block copolymers possessing different bandgaps, quantum dots having complimentary absorption profiles and fullerene derivatives as electron acceptors, will be employed as the workhorses and test-beds for evaluating the hypothesis and refining the methodology. A basic understanding of the intricate cooperative effects of these interactions and the material structural parameters that control the self-assembly processes will be aimed at. New designs and synthetic methodologies for constructing conjugated polymers and block copolymers will be developed and a fundamental knowledge base on structure-property relationships of newly prepared materials will be established. These findings will not only advance basic science but also can be extended to a wide range of materials and hierarchical nanostructures for organic electronic applications.