Light-driven reversible charge transfers from ITO nanocrystals

Luca Rebecchi; Andrea Rubino; Andrea Camellini; Ilka Kriegel

doi:10.3389/fchem.2023.1288681

Light-driven reversible charge transfers from ITO nanocrystals

Front Chem. 2023 Nov 2:11:1288681. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1288681. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Luca Rebecchi^{1

2}, Andrea Rubino¹, Andrea Camellini^{1

3}, Ilka Kriegel¹

Affiliations

¹ Functional Nanosystems, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy.
² Dipartimento di Chimica e Chimica Industriale, Università degli Studi di Genova, Genova, Italy.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.

Abstract

The combination of semiconductors and redox active molecules for light-driven energy storage systems has emerged as a powerful solution for the exploitation of solar batteries. On account of this, transparent conductive oxide (TCO) nanocrystals (NCs) demonstrated to be interesting materials, thanks to the photo-induced charge accumulation enabling light harvesting and storage. The charge transfer process after light absorption, at the base of the proper use of these semiconductors, is a key step, often resulting in non-reversible transformations of the chemicals involved. However, if considering the photocharging through TCO NCs not only as a charge provider for the system but potentially as part of the storage role, the reversible transformation of the redox compound represents a crucial aspect. In this paper, we explore the possible interaction of indium tin oxide (ITO) NCs and typical redox mediators commonly employed in catalytic applications with a twofold scope of enhancing or supporting the light-induced charge accumulation on the metal oxide NC side and controlling the reversibility of the whole process. The work presented focuses on the effect of the redox properties on the doped metal oxide response, both from the stability point of view and the photodoping performance, by monitoring the changes in the optical behavior of ITO/redox hybrid systems upon ultraviolet illumination.

Keywords: charge transfer; hole acceptors; indium tin oxide; nanocrystals; photodoping.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. For this work, the authors received financial support of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101017821 (LIGHT-CAP FET proactive project), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 European Research Council under grant agreement no. 850875 (Light-DYNAMO project), and the European Union’s Horizon Europe European Research Council under grant agreement no. 101069295 (CONDINKS project); MSCA INTRINSIC grant agreement no. 101062400.