The aggregation-induced emission mechanism and solvatochromic impact of Pt-SG clusters were studied and the possible applications utilizing these properties are demonstrated.

We report the reversible polymorphic phase transition of [Ni6(PET)12] (PET = phenylethanethiol) and its effect on the conductivity. This cluster's self-assembly leads to two polymorphic structures with distinct conductivity, caused...

In the present study, the plasmonic effects of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) have been utilized to improve the performance of polymer solar cells. Plasmonic polymer solar cells were fabricated by incorporating Ag NPs at the indium tin oxide (ITO)/MoO 3 buffer layer interface. The size of the Ag NPs has been optimized to improve the device performance. The optimized device with 75 nm sized Ag NPs shows 26% enhancement in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared with the reference device. The short circuit current density mainly contributes to the efficiency enhancement compared with other device parameters. The diffuse reflectance measurements indicate that there is significant enhancement in the optical absorption of active layers when Ag NPs are incorporated into the devices. The scattering cross section of Ag NPs and electric field intensity distribution around the nanoparticles were modeled by finitedifference-time-domain simulations. The experimental results and theoretical simulations revealed that both far-field scattering and near-field concentration of light contributed significantly to the PCE enhancement of the devices.

Current imaging by C-AFM is demonstrated as a very effective tool to probe the defects in the organic solar cell active layer.