Abstract
We review the field of organic–inorganic nanocomposites with a focus on materials that exhibit a significant degree of electronic coupling across the hybrid interface. These nanocomposites undergo a variety of charge and energy transfer processes, enabling optoelectronic applications in devices which exploit singlet fission, triplet energy harvesting, photon upconversion or hot charge carrier transfer. We discuss the physical chemistry of the most common organic and inorganic components. Based on those we derive synthesis and assembly strategies and design criteria on material and device level with a focus on photovoltaics, spin memories or optical upconverters. We conclude that future research in the field should be directed towards an improved understanding of the binding motif and molecular orientation at the hybrid interface.
Highlights
While early examples like paints made from TiO2 particles dispersed in organic surfactants showed little electronic coupling across the interface, increasing attention is devoted towards coupled organicinorganic nanostructures (COIN), which we define as hybrid nanocomposites that transfer significant electron density or energy across the interface
Studying charge and energy transfer in COINs exposes the effect of the interface, increases the chances that its role becomes predominant for the overall physical properties of the system, directly addressing the core hypothesis above
We argue here that advances in the chemistry of nanocomposites enable the rational design of solid-state COIN films which explicitly target one of the four above-mentioned major applications towards an improved optoelectronic device performance
Summary
With the ability to mix organic and inorganic compounds on the nanometer scale, the field of “hybrid organic-inorganic nanostructures” evolved since the 1980s.[1]. While early examples like paints made from TiO2 particles dispersed in organic surfactants showed little electronic coupling across the interface, increasing attention is devoted towards coupled organicinorganic nanostructures (COIN), which we define as hybrid nanocomposites that transfer significant electron density or energy across the interface. In order for this to occur, both constituents of the composite are usually semiconductors, metals or conjugated organic p-systems. The lifetime, dipole strength and degeneracy of excitons with different spin configurations are so distinct in inorganic vs organic matter that the hybrid interface becomes a unique feature in any nanocomposite where the photophysical properties of both constituents merge into something potentially new. The four major applications to date of tailored charge or energy transfer in COINs are singlet fission, triplet energy harvesting, photon upconversion and hot electron transfer.[6,7,8,12] Implementing these application schemes in optoelectronic devices bears the potential to improve the performance of solar cells, light-emitting diodes, photodetectors and photocatalysis.[3,10]
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