Luminescent ruthenium nanoprobes for applications in dye sensitized solar cells

Osborne, Shani Ann Marie (2017). Luminescent ruthenium nanoprobes for applications in dye sensitized solar cells. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

Luminescent nanoprobes have been widely researched for applications in areas such as biological imaging, sensing and photonics. Developing a nanoprobe that adopts the properties of a molecular probe has great difficulty due to quenching of the luminescence of the probe upon attachment to the nanoparticle. Luminescent polypyridyl ruthenium complexes were efficiently labelled on gold nanoparticles to produce a nanoprobe with enhanced photophysical properties compared to the molecular probe. Gold nanoparticles with diameter 13, 50 and 100 nm were employed to investigate the effect of the size of the nanoparticle and it was found that this has no effect on the photophysical properties of the nanoprobe. The distance between the photoactive ruthenium centre and nanoparticle surface was varied through an organic chain to investigate the effect of distance and it was found that increasing the distance increases the photophysical enhancement. Ruthenium molecular probes with optimised photophysical properties were designed and synthesised for development of further enhanced nanoprobes. Upon attaching a bis-phenanthroline ruthenium probe (RuphenS12) to gold nanoparticles, a luminescent lifetime of 1.7 μs was demonstrated. This is competitive with tris-phenanthroline ruthenium complexes seen in the literature. The molecular probes and nanoprobes were investigated in applications for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

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