Contact Information

Dr. Stephen E. Rankin
Dept. of Chemical & Materials Engineering
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506-0046
Phone: 859-257-9799
E-mail: srankin@engr.uky.edu

Evaporation-driven Synthesis of Photoactive Semiconducting Films with Oriented Cylindrical Nanopores

Semiconducting metal oxide films with orthogonally aligned hexagonal close packed (o-HCP) cylindrical pores infiltrated with aligned p-type organic semiconducting organics have been hypothesized to be ideal organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells. Based on their preliminary success at preparing mesoporous TiO2 films with orthogonally aligned mesopores (reported in Nano Letters in 2007), the Rankin group will optimize these films for photoelectrochemical applications by developing methods to control the pore size, wall thickness, and wall crystallinity. The films will then be infiltrated with polymeric and molecular hole carriers and tested for energy efficiency, hole/electron combination kinetics, and electrical transport characteristics. As the project progresses, the composition and structure of the films will be tuned to improve efficiency and to provide insights into the nature of current generation in organic-inorganic hybrid photovoltaic films. When they are fully optimized and developed, these films will provide tunable, inexpensive, adaptable alternatives to traditional single-crystal silicon-based photovoltaic cells.