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Article

Silica−Titania-Based Organic−Inorganic Hybrid Materials for Photovoltaic Applications

Supporting Info

Cheng-Lan Lin,^†^‡ Mei-Yu Yeh,^† Chih-Hsien Chen,^†^‡ Sundarraj Sudhakar,^† Shr-Jie Luo,^†^‡ Ying-Chan Hsu,^§ Chung-Yi Huang,^§ Kuo-Chuan Ho,^§ and Tien-Yau Luh*^†

Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan 106, and Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Nangang, Taipei, Taiwan 115

Chem. Mater., 2006, 18 (17), pp 4157–4162

DOI: 10.1021/cm0602693

Publication Date (Web): July 29, 2006

†

Department of Chemistry, NTU.

‡

Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica.

Department of Chemical Engineering, NTU

Institute of Polymer Science and Engineering, NTU.

Corresponding author. Fax: (+886)2-2651-1488. E-mail: tyluh@ntu.edu.tw.

Abstract

Silica−titania-based organic−inorganic hybrid materials (OIHMs) containing covalently bonded organic chromophores with photosensitization ability were developed. The presence of the Ti−O−Si linkage in these OIHMs was established by infrared spectroscopy. Photocurrent and photovoltage were generated upon irradiation of these OIHM films on an indium tin oxide (ITO) glass or nanocrystalline TiO₂ surface. The photovoltaic properties depend on the relative molar fractions of silica and titania in the OIHM films. The OIHMs thus prepared can serve as anchoring matrixes for associating the chromophores with nanocrystalline TiO₂ surfaces and can be used as active layers in photovoltaic devices. Control experiments using a blending protocol suggest that covalent bonding between the chromophores and the silica−titania hybrid networks is essential to enhancing the performance of photovoltaic devices.

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