EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, Fife, UK, KY16 9ST
ezc@st-andrews.ac.uk;
www.zysman-colman.com
Visual display technology has come a long way in the past fifty years. From black and white TVs through to the current HD LCD displays, the way that information is displayed electronically has been revolutionized. But what will the next generation of visual displays look like and what type of materials will be used to construct them? The first part of the talk will centre around our recent efforts to conceive, model, synthesise and study luminescent iridium(III) complexes. How to tune and optimize phosphorescent lifetimes, quantum yields and emission energy will be discussed, particularly with the goal to obtaining a bright and stable blue emitter. Initial device fabrication work will be presented.
Adoption of solar cell technology is the World’s best alternative to fossil fuel consumption in that it is the only technology that can potentially address global energy demands. Though conventional crystalline silicon solar cells are now quite efficient in converting solar energy into electricity, they are still relatively expensive to manufacture, creating a barrier to entry on a large scale. One of the next generation solar cell technologies that shows much promise is the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), first developed by Grätzel and O’Regan in 1991, wherein a ruthenium(II) dye is employed as a light harvester. Despite the more than 30 years of research in this field, DSSC efficiencies have rarely topped 12%. In the second part of the talk, I will explore whether iridium(III) complexes can act as dyes for DSSCs and whether such a design modification will lead to more efficient DSSCs.