journal article·2016-08-12

Surface Polarization Drives Photoinduced Charge Separation at the P3HT/Water Interface

Edoardo Mosconi, Paolo Salvatori, Maria Ilenia Saba, Alessandro Mattoni, Sebastiano Bellani, Francesco Bruni, Beatriz Santiago Gonzalez, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Sergio Brovelli, Guglielmo Lanzani, Hong Li, Jean-Luc Brédas, Filippo De Angelis

ACS Energy Letters· Volume 1· Issue 2
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Abstract

Hybrid devices employing organic semiconductors interfaced with an aqueous solution represent a new frontier in bioelectronics and energy applications. Understanding of the energetics and photoinduced processes occurring at the organic/water interface is fundamental for further progress. Here, we investigate the interfacial electronic structure of poly-3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) sandwiched between an indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode and a liquid water electrolyte. The aqueous solution is found to polarize the polymer outermost layers, which together with the polymer p-(photo) doping by dissolved oxygen localizes photogenerated electrons at the P3HT/water interface, while holes can be transferred to the ITO electrode. Under illumination, the polymer/water interface is negatively charged, attracting positive ions from the electrolyte solution and perturbing the ion distribution in the aqueous solution. The observed mechanism is of general character and could underlie the behavior of a variety of devices characterized by an organic/water interface, such as prosthetic devices for artificial vision and organic-based systems for photoelectrochemical applications.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Conducting polymers and applications · Electrochemical Analysis and Applications · Analytical Chemistry and Sensors

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Computational Laboratory for Hybrid/Organic Photovoltaics (CLHYO), CNR-ISTM, Via Elce di Sotto 8, 06123 Perugia, Italy

D3-Computation, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Morego 30, 16163 Genova, Italy

Istituto Officina dei Materiali CNR-IOM SLACS Cagliari, Cittadella Universitaria, 09042 Monserrato (CA), Italy

Center for Nano Science and Technology@Polimi, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Via Pascoli 70/3, 20133 Milano, Italy

Politecnico di Milano, Dip.to di Fisica, P.zza L. Da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy

Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, via Cozzi 55, IT-20125 Milano, Italy

School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0400, United States

Solar & Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology − KAUST, Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Funding

European Commission · Fondazione Telethon · Fondazione Cariplo · King Abdullah University of Science and Technology · Office of Naval Research · Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia

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