Self-similar fractals are of importance in both science and engineering. Metal-organic Sierpin′ ski triangles are particularly attractive for applications in gas separation, catalysis and sensing. Such fractals are constructed in this study by using 1208 V-shaped 4,400-dicyano-1,10:30,100-terphenyl molecules and Fe atoms on Au(1 1 1), and studied in detail by low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. Density functional theory calculations are employed to rationalize the invisible Fe atoms in STM images. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to understand the formation mechanism of the surface-supported fractal crystals.
Na LiXue ZhangGao-Chen GuHao WangDamian NieckarzPawel SzabelskiYang HeYu WangJing-Tao LüHao TangLian-Mao PengShi-Min HouKai WuYong-Feng Wang
Two-dimensional self-assemblies of four partially fluorinated molecules, 1,4-bis(2,6-difluoropyridin-4-yl)benzene, 4,4'-bis(2,6-difluoropyridin-4-yl)-1,1'-biphenyl, 4,4'-bis(2,6-difluoropyridin-4-yl)-1,1':4',1'-terphenyl and 4,4'-bis(2,6-difluoropyridin-3-yl)-1,1'-biphenyl, involving weak intermolecular C-H···F and C-H···N hydrogen bonds were systematically investigated on Au(111) with low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. The inter-molecular connecting modes and binding sites were closely related to the backbones of the building blocks, i.e., the molecule length determines its binding sites with neighboring molecules in the assemblies while the attaching positions of the N and F atoms dictate its approaching and docking angles. The experimental results demonstrate that multiple weak hydrogen bonds such as C-H···F and C-H···N can be efficiently applied to tune the molecular orientations and the self-assembly structures accordingly.
Xin JinJacob R. CramerQi-Wei ChenHai-Lin LiangJian ShangXiang ShaoWei ChenGuo-Qin XuKurt V. GothelfKai Wu
The design and fabrication of nanostructures based on titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) have attracted much attention because of their low cost, non-toxicity, stability, and potential applications in industry and technology. Recently, one-dimensional (1D) structured titanates have been used as titanium source to prepare TiO 2 nanostructures with various crystalline phases, shapes, sizes, exposed facets, and hierarchical structures. Among the synthetic strategies, hydrothermal method is a facile route to controllable preparation of well-crystalline TiO 2 in one step. Herein, we review our recent progress in transferring 1D titanates into TiO 2 nanostructures through hydrothermal method, including the transformation mechanism and applications.
In this paper,we investigated the recombination dynamics of photogenerated charge carriers in a poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl-C 61-butyric acid methyl ester(PC 61 BM) blend system with donor-acceptor ratio of 1:1 before and after solvent annealing treatment.The technique of transient photocurrent and photovoltage measurements were used,and charge carriers were photogenerated by a 7 ns laser pulse at room temperature(298 K).In transient photocurrent measurement,we observed some differences in the saturation extracted charge in P3HT:PCBM solar cells with different power efficiencies.In addition,the bimolecular recombination coefficient is found to be 3.5×10-13 cm 3 s-1 for annealed devices,while 9.5×10-12 cm3 s-1 for as-cast devices.In the transient photovoltage measurement,we found that the photovoltage decay can be fitted by power-law equation at long time scale.The exponent parameter is 2.6 for annealed devices,which can be described as trap-free bimolecular recombination;is 1.76 for as-cast device due to the trap-limited bimolecular recombination.These experimental results indicate that the nanomorphology of active layer indeed have influence on charge carriers dynamics in P3HT:PCBM blend systems.
