The conversion of the solar radiation in electric power represents a promising opportunity to address the increasing demand for clean energy, while decreasing the environmental impact caused by excessive CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) have been widely investigated in recent decades due to their unique optical, electrical properties and various applications in solar technologies. Among these NCs, colloidal carbon dots (Cdots) are regarded as promising candidates for realizing solar harvesting devices. Cdots are the latest addition to the carbon nanoallotropes family and they are exclusively composed of non-toxic elements, such as nitrogen, carbon and oxygen. They can be easily synthetized in large quantities by solvothermal method. Their main advantages, compared to conventional semiconducting quantum dots (QDs), is the non-toxicity, environmental friendliness, low-cost and simple preparation using abundant carbon based feedstock. Herein, different type of Cdots with different surfaces functionalization and optical features are prepared. In particular their absorption and emission spectra are tuned in the Visibile/Near infra-red range. Their ability to inject charges in different materials, such as TiO2 and Graphene Oxide, is systematically investigated in order to understand the role of the different surface functionalization in the charge transfer mechanism. Based on these results and thanks to the excellent opto-electronic properties of the Cdots; carefully chosen Cdots are then employed in different roles: as photosensitizer for wide-band gap semiconductors, as charge transport layer to realize high efficient perovskite solar cells and also as luminophores for metal-free large-area luminescent solar concentrators (LSC).

Colloidal carbon dots for solar technologies

2019 Fall National Meeting

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