One-pot approach to 1,2-disubstituted indoles via Cu(II)-catalyzed coupling/cyclization under aerobic conditions and its application for the synthesis of polycyclic indoles.

A straightforward assembly of 1,2-disubstituted indoles has been developed through a Cu(II)-catalyzed domino coupling/cyclization process. Under aerobic conditions, a wide range of 1,2-disubstituted indole derivatives were efficiently and facilely synthesized from 2-alkynylanilines and boronic acids. 2-(2-Bromoaryl)-1-aryl-1H-indoles, which were selectively generated in one pot under the Cu catalysis, afforded the indolo[1,2-f]phenanthridines via Pd-catalyzed intramolecular direct C(sp(2))-H arylation. The one-pot tandem approaches to the polycyclic indole derivatives were also successfully achieved.

Enhancement of open-circuit voltage and the fill factor in CdTe nanocrystal solar cells by using interface materials.

Interface states influence the operation of nanocrystal (NC) solar cell carrier transport, recombination and energetic mechanisms. In a typical CdTe NC solar cell with a normal structure of a ITO/p-CdTe NCs/n-acceptor (or without)/Al configuration, the contact between the ITO and CdTe is a non-ohm contact due to a different work function (for an ITO, the value is ~4.7 eV, while for CdTe NCs, the value is ~5.3 eV), which results in an energetic barrier at the ITO/CdTe interface and decreases the performance of the NC solar cells. This work investigates how interface materials (including Au, MoO(x) and C60) affect the performance of NC solar cells. It is found that devices with interface materials have shown higher V(oc) than those without interface materials. For the case in which we used Au as an interface, we obtained a high open-circuit voltage of 0.65 V, coupled with a high fill factor (62%); this resulted in a higher energy conversion efficiency (ECE) of 5.3%, which showed a 30% increase in the ECE compared with those without the interlayer. The capacitance measurements indicate that the increased V(oc) in the case in which Au was used as the interface is likely due to good ohm contact between the Au's and the CdTe NCs' thin film, which decreases the energetic barrier at the ITO/CdTe interface.