Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) are an important class of nanomaterials that have found widespread application in the realm of energy conversion, catalysis, and pollution remediation methods. In particular, semiconducting oxide materials, such as zinc oxide (ZnO) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) NPs, show excellent promise for the development of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). DSSCs involve absorption of light by the molecules adsorbed at the surface of oxide NPs. One of the major obstacles to increase the efficiency of DSSCs is to obtain an optimum condition for the adsorbed dyes. To better understand the mechanism by which dye molecules adsorb to these nanoparticles, we have utilized surface sensitive second harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy and measured adsorption isotherms of an array of dyes relevant to the development of DSSCs. Using SHG, the binding affinities of different molecules, such as eosin and coumarin dyes, onto ZnO and TiO2 NPs suspended in non-aqueous medium have been determined. Our investigation highlights the applicability of SHG in probing the adsorption of dyes to semiconducting NPs and provides insights into the nature of dye-particle surface interaction.

Spectroscopic investigation of the binding affinity of molecular dyes to metal oxide nanoparticles suspended in liquid medium

248th National Meeting (2014)

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