title: A photoelectrochemical device with a nanostructured SnO2 electrode modified with composite clusters of porphyrin-modified silica nanoparticle and fullerene.
abstract: A silica nanoparticle has been successfully employed as a nanoscaffold to self-organize porphyrin and C60 molecules on a nanostructured SnO2 electrode. The quenching of the porphyrin excited singlet state on the silica nanoparticle is suppressed significantly, showing that silica nanoparticles are promising scaffolds for organizing photoactive molecules three-dimensionally in nanometer scale. Marked enhancement of the photocurrent generation was achieved in the present system compared with the reference system, where a gold core was employed as a scaffold of porphyrins instead of a silica nanoparticle. The rather small incident photon-to-current efficiency relative to a similar photoelectrochemical device using a silica microparticle may result from poor electron and hole mobility in the composite film due to poor connection between the composite clusters of a porphyrin-modified silica nanoparticle and C60 in micrometer scale.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan. imahori@scl.kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Imahori
authors.forename: Keigo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mitamura
authors.forename: Yuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shibano
authors.forename: Tomokazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Umeyama
authors.forename: Yoshihiro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matano
authors.forename: Kaname
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Seiji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Isoda
authors.forename: Yasuyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Araki
authors.forename: Osamu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ito