| Description |
“The power of molecular electronics lies in the precise control over the structure and composition of its molecular components. Biological complexity has often provided inspiration for such devices; a prominent example being the dye-sensitized solar cells which conceptually mimicked chlorophyll-based photosynthesis. The efficiencies of such biomimetic approaches however, have been limited due to lack of mechanistic understanding of the intrinsic loss pathways. Therefore major challenges faced in optimizing the design features are: 1) understanding of the fundamental chemistry at interfaces, and 2) robustness of the chosen molecular structure. In order to address these challenges an energetic and structural glimpse of the involved reaction dynamics is imperative. I will present work on revealing detailed reaction mechanisms in artificial systems along with attempts towards understanding natural repair mechanisms using high-resolution structural techniques.”
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