Effect of dihedral angle of bridge unit on the performance of dye-sensitized solar cell

In this work, we investigated the impact of bridge unit on their photo-physical and photovoltaic performance. Increased planarity of the dyes effectively extended the absorption, but reduces the efficiency. Interestingly we found that dyes with a thiophene conjugate unit showed inferior performance when compared with benzene. Theoretical computation indicates a large dihedral angle in the latter system. EIS analysis evidenced the severe recombination in the thiophene-based dye, showing that good planarity may lead to dye aggregation and decrease the efficiency.     

Low-temperature photoluminescence of p-nitroaniline and o-methyl-p-nitroaniline crystals

Photoemission spectra of para-nitroaniline (p-NA) and ortho-methyl-para-nitroaniline (MNA) single crystals measured between 5 and 250K revealed that the MNA crystals emit phosphorescence and fluorescence in contrast with the p-NA crystals which have only fluorescence. It is assumed that the fluorescence of p-NA crystals at 5K originates from the doublet state of negatively charged polarons while the fluorescence of MNA crystals at 60K is due to trap states. The Stokes shift between absorption and emission onsets, measured at 5K, is much larger in the p-NA crystals than in the MNA and meta-nitroaniline (m-NA) crystals. This fact is rationalized by different geometrical changes caused by excitation.     

Graph-like spaces: An introduction

Thomassen and Vella (Graph-like continua, augmenting arcs, and Menger’s Theorem, Combinatorica, doi:10.1007/s00493-008-2342-9) have recently introduced the notion of a graph-like space, simultaneously generalizing infinite graphs and many of the compact spaces recently used by Diestel or Richter (and their coauthors) to study cycle spaces and related problems in infinite graphs. This work is a survey to introduce graph-like spaces and shows how many of these works on compact spaces can be generalized to compact graph-like spaces.