Materials Chemistry and Nanochemistry Research Group, Centre for Inorganic and Polymeric Materials, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.
ACS Nano. 2011 Apr 26;5(4):2984-8. doi: 10.1021/nn2000492. Epub 2011 Mar 17.
Optically transparent and electrically conductive electrodes are ubiquitous in the myriad world of devices. They are an indispensable component of solar and photoelectrochemical cells, organic and polymer light emitting diodes, lasers, displays, electrochromic windows, photodetectors, and chemical sensors. The majority of the electrodes in such devices are made of large electronic band-gap doped metal oxides fashioned as a dense low-surface-area film deposited on a glass substrate. Typical transparent conducting oxide materials include indium-, fluorine-, or antimony-doped tin oxides. Herein we introduce for the first time a transparent conductive periodic macroporous electrode that has been self-assembled from 6 nm nanocrystalline antimony-doped tin oxide with high thermal stability, optimized electrical conductivity, and high quality photonic crystal properties, and present an electrochemically actuated optical light switch built from this electrode, whose operation is predicated on its unique combination of electrical, optical, and photonic properties. The ability of this macroporous electrode to host active functional materials like dyes, polymers, nanocrystals, and nanowires provides new opportunities to create devices with improved performance enabled by the large area, spatially accessible and electroactive internal surface.
在众多的器件世界中，光学透明且导电的电极无处不在。它们是太阳能和光电化学电池、有机和聚合物发光二极管、激光、显示器、电致变色窗、光电探测器和化学传感器的不可或缺的组成部分。此类器件中的大多数电极由具有大电子带隙的掺杂金属氧化物制成，这些金属氧化物被形成为沉积在玻璃基底上的致密低表面积薄膜。典型的透明导电氧化物材料包括掺铟、氟或锑的氧化锡。在此，我们首次引入了一种透明导电周期性大孔电极，它由具有高热稳定性、优化的电导率和高质量光子晶体特性的 6nm 纳米晶掺锑氧化锡自组装而成，并展示了由该电极构建的电化学驱动光开关，其操作基于其独特的电、光和光子特性组合。这种大孔电极能够容纳染料、聚合物、纳米晶体和纳米线等活性功能材料，为通过大面积、空间可及和电活性内部表面来改善性能的器件创造了新的机会。
