Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Electronic Spectroscopy And Dissociation Dynamics Of Gasphase Transition Metal Containing Cations And Dications, Kanchana Manori Perera

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Studies of gas-phase ionic clusters have become an integral component in understanding microsolvation and catalysis by transition metal cations. Further interest in this field is due to the possibility of bridging the gap between the condensed and gas phases by developing our understanding of clusters and the possibility that small clusters can have unique chemical and catalytic properties. Most gas phase studies have focused on singly charged ions. Electrospray allows for the production of multiply charged ions solvated by a few solvent molecules. Understanding smaller reactive species such as metal centered clusters with well-defined, gas phase conditions also allows for …

Molecular Designs Toward Improving Organic Photovoltaics, Arpornrat Nantalaksakul

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) that have been studied to date have poor power conversion efficiencies. This dissertation focuses on various molecular designs that could lead to both a fundamental understanding of photoinduced charge separation at a molecular level and also provide a solution to improve bulk properties of organic materials to overcome the poor efficiencies of OPV devices.

The effect of molecular architectures on the efficiency of electron transfer, a primary step in OPVs functioning, is evaluated in this work. We have shown that even though dendrimer provides an interesting architecture for efficient electron transfer due to the presence of multiple …

Functionalized Nanoparticles For Biological Imaging And Detection Applications, Bing C Mei

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have gained tremendous attention in the last decade as a result of their size-dependent spectroscopic properties. These nanoparticles have been a subject of intense study to bridge the gap between macroscopic and atomic behavior, as well as to generate new materials for novel applications in therapeutics, biological sensing, light emitting devices, microelectronics, lasers, and solar cells. One of the most promising areas for the use of these nanoparticles is in biotechnology, where their size-dependent optical properties are harnessed for imaging and sensing applications. However, these nanoparticles, as synthesized, are often not stable …