A fundamental understanding of interfacial charge transfer at donor-acceptor interfaces is very crucial as it is considered among the most important dynamical processes for optimizing performance in many light harvesting systems, including photovoltaics and photo-catalysis. In general, the photo-generated singlet excitons in photoactive materials exhibit very short lifetimes because of their dipole-allowed spin radiative decay and short diffusion lengths. In contrast, the radiative decay of triplet excitons is dipole forbidden; therefore, their lifetimes are considerably longer. The discussion in this thesis primarily focuses on the relevant parameters that are involved in charge separation (CS), charge transfer (CT), intersystem crossing (ISC) rate, triplet state lifetime, and carrier recombination (CR) at silver nanocluster (NCs) molecular-acceptors interfaces. A combination of steady-state and femto- and nanosecond broadband transient absorption spectroscopies were used to investigate the charge carrier dynamics in various donor-acceptor systems. Additionally, this thesis was prolonged to investigate some important factors that influence the charge carrier dynamics in Ag29 silver NCs donor-acceptor systems, such as the metal doping and chemical structure of the nanocluster and molecular acceptors. Interestingly, clear correlations between the steady-state measurements and timeresolved spectroscopy results are found. In the first study, we have investigated the interfacial charge transfer dynamics in positively charged meso units of 5, 10, 15, 20-tetra (1- methyl-4-pyridino)-porphyrin tetra (p-toluene sulfonate) (TMPyP) and neutral charged 5, 10, 15, 20-tetra (4-pyridyl)-porphyrin (TPyP), with negatively charged undoped and gold (Au)- doped silver Ag29 NCs. Moreover, this study showed the impact of Au doping on the charge carrier dynamics of the system. In the second study, we have investigated the interfacial charge transfer dynamics in [Pt2 Ag23 Cl7 (PPh3)10] silver NCs doped with platinum (Pt), with neutral charged 5, 10, 15, 20-tetra (4-pyridyl)-porphyrin (TPyP). Here, we evaluated the effects of Pt (II) doping on the interfacial charge-transfer dynamics between TPyP and silver NCs.

Since 2016 there are world-wide more mobile phone contracts than people on the planet, and in all these devices critical raw materials (CRMs) are incorporated.[1] For instance, commonly used silicon-based transistors are limited in their chemical modularity. Inorganic materials for solar cells and photocatalysis suffer from critical raw elements content, low apparent quantum efficiencies and photodegradation. Hence, considerable research interest in recent years is focused on development of new high-performance devices for optical and electronic applications that avoid CRMs entirely. To address all these problems materials chemists are exploring for new pathways towards making more sustainable and reliable materials. In that respect, porous organic π- conjugated polymers (POPs) are among the most promising candidates and have gained tremendous attention in materials research over the last decade, especially in the fields of photocatalysis, opto- and electrochemical sensorics, and microelectronics. Synthetic diversity, chemical and physical stability, as well as comparatively low production costs and scalability enable POPs to overcome the drawbacks of inorganic materials. Moreover, the absence of rare earth elements in the purely organic structure of POPs makes these materials more environmentally...

The principle calcium regulator in the muscle cell is the calcium ion release channel (RyR). Improper calcium homeostasis in the muscle cell is the foundation of many pathological states and has been targeted as a contributing factor to ventricular tachycardia, which is known to precede sudden cardiac arrest. Numerous endogenous and exogenous compounds can affect the way RyR regulates calcium. In this study the anthocyanidin Pelargonidin (Pg), an important natural colorant and dietary antioxidant, is evaluated for its effect on regulating the transport of calcium through the RyR1 of skeletal muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum. Pelargonidin undergoes time dependent structural changes in aqueous solutions at physiological pH and a mixture of up to seven forms of Pelargonidin are present in solution simultaneously. Pelargonidin is a unique RyR1 modulator. It can both stimulate and inhibit the RyR1 depending on the experimental conditions. In addition, when Pelargonidin is irradiated with white light, its inhibition properties on the RyR1 are essentially nullified. Proposed mechanisms include excited state charge shift within RyR1-Pg complexes.

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Commercial success had been achieved with electroluminescent phosphor powders, particularly zinc sulfide activated with copper. The applications of AC Powder EL (ACPEL) are mainly limited to backlighting and lamp applications that require low brightness. This includes low illumination environments, such as nightlights and backlighting for LCDs and keypads in portable electronics and home electronics. By using nanowires as nanoelectrodes, a novel and self-supported nanostructured powder EL device has been developed in this thesis. The novel structure contains a single layer of ZnS:Cu powder phosphor which is embedded in a polymer matrix with one surface exposed. A dilute layer of conductive nanowires directly contacts the phosphor layer and works as rear electrodes. A highly intensified electric field can be induced in the phosphor region by the metal nanowires if a specific voltage is applied to the device. Simulations of the electric field by using commercial software show that the localized electric field can be at least one order of magnitude higher than the average field depending on the dimensions of the nanowires. As a result, electrons can be injected into the phosphor lattice by high-field-assisted tunneling, hence inducing electron avalanching. The electrons finally are trapped at the donors. When the external field is reversed, the electrons recombine with the holes that are previously injected by the same process and trapped at the acceptors. Therefore, visible light is produced by the recombination of the electron-hole pairs through the donor-acceptor pairs. The indium nanowires, with diameters of 300 nm and lengths of several microns, have been fabricated by using anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates which are known as self-organized porous structures formed by anodization of aluminum in an appropriate acid solution. A hydraulic pressure injection method has been applied to inject molten indium metal into the nanopores of the AAO template and form nanowires. By dissolution of the template, a large number of free indium nanowires is obtained. The nanowires are transferred onto a ZnS-embedded substrate by a wet-coating method. Finally, the entire device is completed by deposition of Au rectangular electrodes on the top of the indium nanowires. The indium nanowires have been characterized by using SEM and XRD. The tests of the dependence of luminance on voltage at various frequencies for a nanowire contact EL device sample are performed. A peak luminance of 25 cd/m2 has been achieved for the device driven at frequency of 8.2 kHz and a voltage of 425 V. The EL performance of the nanowire contact EL device is not as good as traditional powder EL devices so far, however, the novel structures have the potential for a lower operating voltage with simultaneous long lifetime and high luminance to overcome limitations of traditional powder EL. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Cross-conjugation in molecules has been seen in nature for many years but was not pursued due to the difficulty of their synthesis and their lack of stability. Recently, it has become more interesting due to the rise of molecular electronics. Linear conjugation serves well as the wires to conduct electrons, but molecular electronics are made up of more than just wires. Molecules are needed that possess an on/off switch that can allow or deter conduction. Cross-conjugated systems show promise in their ability to be turned on or off from external stimuli. Pentacene quinone is a well-known cross-conjugated molecule that already shows promise in the field of molecular semiconductors. By synthetically fusing the pentacene quinone to the β, β' positions of a porphyrin, it has been shown that both the solubility and stability have been greatly improved. This has allowed us to pursue functionalization of the quinone moiety. Several new cross-conjugated pentacene quinone fused porphyrin systems were synthesized and studied. It was found that cross-conjugated platinum porphyrins show enhanced fluorescence, and phosphorescence that shifts toward the Near IR. Additionally, strong electron withdrawing groups show potential in charge transfer, and a lower HOMO to LUMO gap, while mildly withdrawing groups have a higher HOMO to LUMO gap. Furthermore, a new method to introduce halogenated methine bridges at the pentacene quinone core was developed, thus opening the doors to new polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to be synthesized and studied.

Energy- and electron-transfer processes in molecular and supramolecular donor-acceptor systems are of current interest in order to develop light-energy harvesting systems through designing covalently linked donor-acceptor systems or utilizing self-assembled donor-acceptor systems. The research presented in this dissertation deals with the electrochemical, anion binding, and photochemical studies of various oxoporphyrinogen (OxPs), porphyrin, corrole, and phenothiazine systems. The first chapter provides a brief introduction to the material discussed in the subsequent chapters. The second chapter discusses the bromination of meso-tetraarylporphyrings and how that affects their electrochemical, catalytic, and other properties. Bromination of these porphyrins and oxoporphyrinogens allow the HOMO-LUMO gap to increase revealing blue-shifted absorption. Brominated OxPs and bis-crown ether OxP self-assembled with anions depending on strength of the anion and size of the binding site. The addition of crown ethers allows a cation binding site which makes a self-assembled donor-acceptor supramolecular system.Chapters 5 and 6 discuss a series of donor-acceptor conjugates based on zinc porphyrin as the electron donor and copper(III) corrole as the electron acceptor. These studies illustrate the importance of copper(III) corrole as a potent electron acceptor for the construction of energy harvesting model compounds, and constitute the first definitive proof of charge separation in ZnP-CuIIIC systems.Chapter 7 summarizes several interesting observations made in the present study on DSSCs built on two types of phenothiazine dyes having one or two cyanocinnamic acid groups.

Mother nature has laid out a beautiful blueprint to capture sunlight and convert to usable form of energy. Inspired by nature, donor-acceptor systems are predominantly studied for their light harvesting applications. This dissertation explores new donor-acceptor systems by studying their photochemical properties useful in building artificial photosynthetic systems. The systems studied are divided into phthalocyanine-porphyrin-fullerene-based, perylenediimide-based, and aluminum porphyrin-based donor-acceptor systems. Further effect of solvents in determining the energy or electron transfer was studied in chapter 6. Such complex photosynthetic analogues are designed and characterized using UV-vis, fluorescence spectroscopy, differential pulse voltammetry and cyclic voltammetry. Using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy, the excited state properties are explored. The information obtained from the current study is critical in getting one step closer to building affordable and sustainable solar energy harvesting devices which could easily unravel the current energy demands.

The present thesis is focused on rational design and synthesis of π-conjugated donor-acceptor (D-A) type oligomers and polymers. It is organized in six different chapters and a brief discussion on the content of the individual chapter is provided below. Chapter 1 briefly describes the charge transport properties of organic semiconductors followed by recent development of different organic semiconducting materials mainly for applications in OFET and solar cells have been highlighted. Chapter 2 explores the synthesis and characterization of two new liquid crystalline, D-A type bithiophene-benzothiazole derivatives. The liquid crystalline properties of the materials have been studied in detail with optical polarizing microscopic images and differential scanning calorimetry and found that these materials possess highly ordered smectic A liquid crystalline phase. Their charge transport properties have also been investigated by fabricating OFET devices. Chapter 3 describes the photophysical properties and OFET performance of quinoxaline based donors-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) type molecules. Depending on the flexibility and rigidity of the conjugated backbone these materials show liquid crystalline behaviour. Investigation of their OFET performance indicated that these molecules exhibit p-type mobility up to 9.7 x 10-4 cm2V-1s-1 and on/ off ratio of 104. Chapter 4 investigates excited state properties and OFET behavior of D-A-D type diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) derivatives end-capped with alkoxynaphthalene group. UV-Visible spectroscopy measurement shows strong intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) between donor and acceptor unit. Steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence measurements confirm the formation of excimer. The excited state interactions, the interchromophore separation and geometry of the molecules influence the extent of excimer formation. Finally, the OFET behavior of these DPP based materials has been studied using different dielectric layers. Chapter 5 discusses the synthesis, characterization and properties of two new thieno[3,2-b]thiophene-DPP based donor-acceptor (D-A) type low band gap polymers (PTTDPP-BDT and PTTDPP-BZT). Investigation of OFET performance indicated that polymers exhibited ambipolar behaviour with hole mobility upto 1.0 x 10-3 cm2/Vs and electron mobility upto 8 x 10-5 cm2/Vs. Using polymer PTTDPP-BDT with electron acceptor C70PCBM, power conversion efficiency (PCE) around 3.26% in bulk heterojunction solar cell has been achieved. Chapter 6 describes the approach to tailor the energy levels of conjugated polymers (PTDPP-IDT and PTTDPP-IDT) based on Indacenodithiophene (IDT) coupled with DPP moieties. We have studied the photovoltaic performance of these conjugated polymers by blending with PCBM and P3HT. The importance of these materials in polymer/polymer blend solar cell has been emphasized. The photovoltaic devices with polymer/polymer blend solar cell exhibit high open-circuit voltages (VOC) of ~ 0.8 V. In summary, the work presented in this thesis describes synthesis, characterization and photophysical properties of new organic semiconductors and their importance in optoelectronic devices. This work also describes a general design principle of nonfullerene organic solar cell. The results described here show that these materials have potential application as active components in plastic electronics.

This thesis deals with theoretical studies of electronic properties of organic conjugated molecules. The first chapter introduces different classes of organic conjugated molecules which possess high hole mobility, large quadratic non-linear response and low band gap. In this chapter, we further describe different photo-physical processes and the basic principles of various opto-electronic devices. The second chapter provides an introduction to various many-body techniques, which are employed in studying ground and excited state properties of organic conjugated systems. First, we describe the Hartree-Fock theory and the Density Functional (DFT) method. These are followed by full Configuration-Interaction (CI) methods and various semi-empirical methods (CNDO, INDO and NDDO). The INDO method is used in subsequent chapters to obtain the ground and excited state properties of organic conjugated molecules. In addition, we describe the restricted CI (SCI and SDCI) and the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) methods. The third chapter of this thesis deals with a time evolution study to ascertain the role of the triplet state in the green emission of the ethyl-hexyl substituted poly-fluorene (PF2/6) films. To understand this phenomenon, we have modeled various non-radiative processes like (i) Inter-System Crossing (ISC), (ii) electron-hole Recombination (e-hR) and (iii) Triplet Quenching (TQ). These studies conclusively prove the contribution of triplet states to the 500 nm EL peak. In chapter four, we describe the origin of the unusual EL in tri-p-tolylamine (TTA) based hole conductors. In order to model this phenomenon, we have performed SCI calculations on TTA, its radical ions and allied hole conductors (TAPC and TPD). These calculations indicate that the unusual EL is due to low-lying charge-transfer (CT) state, which is stabilized by charge-dipole and charge-induced-dipole interactions. In chapter five, we turn our attention to the calculation of ground and excited state properties of a class of donor-acceptor (DA) system using ab-initio DFT and INDO methods. In these systems, DFT calculations along with INDO-SCI calculation, show strong intramolecular charge transfer interaction between the D and the A units. We have further calculated various properties like permanent dipole moments, oscillator strengths, Stoke’s shifts in various solvents etc. In chapter six, we focus on studying linear and non-linear optical properties of first generation nitrogen based dendrimers, using DMRG method. A novel scheme which includes the weights of the dipole allowed states in the computation of the density matrix is developed to obtain accurate dipole allowed excited states as well as the linear and nonlinear optical responses. Chapter seven deals with non-linear optical properties of weak donor-acceptor (DA) complexes formed between methyl substituted phenylenes (donor) and Chloranil or DDQ (acceptors). We have calculated the ground and the low-lying excited states of these DA complexes using INDO-SDCI method. The first hyperpolarizability (β) response coefficients are calculated using the Correction Vector (CV) technique, which are further used to obtain macroscopic depolarization ratios. By comparing the theoretical results with experimental findings, it can be shown that the slipped parallel configuration with a slight twist is the most preferred geometry of these weak DA complexes in solution.