Photoelectric characteristics of natural pigments self-assembly fabricated on TiO2/FTO substrate.

Natural pigment can act as an inexpensive and biologically-friendly dye, which is fabricated on a TiO2/FTO substrate. Natural pigments promote the efficiency of the photoelectric conversion in water-based DSSC with the aqueous electrolyte of the Ce+4/+3 system. The open-circuit voltage (Voc) of natural pigment in water-based DSSC is 0.640 V. The short-circuit current (Isc) of natural pigment in water-based DSSC is 0.658 mA/cm2. The efficiency of the photoelectric conversion in water-based DSSC of natural pigment is up to 0.131%. The natural pigments in DSSC are potentially applicable to turning solar energy into environmentally-friendly energy.

Ellipsometric studies of optical properties of local surface plasmon resonance for Au nanoparticles on the substrate.

Few ellipsometric studies have been conducted on Au self-assembled monolayers (SAM), with large discrepancies obtained for refractive index values. Because the Au NPs layer is a kind of composite layer, Au NPs and void, the effective media approximate (EMA) model was employed to investigate the optical properties of Au NPs. The reflective coefficient (approximately 1.2) was smaller than the extinction coefficient (approximately 2.5), which is different from the previous reports and corresponds to the Drude model. The absorption peak of surface plasmon resonance for Au NPs on the glass substrate was shifted from 580 nm to 480 nm.

Influence of surface plasmon resonance on the emission intermittency of photoluminescence from gold nano-sea-urchins.

The effect of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) on the blinking emission of photoluminescence from noble metal nanostructures still requires further investigation in quantum mechanics and limits their applications. We investigate one photon luminescent emission intermittency of noble metal nanostructures with differently sized sea-urchin-shaped nanoparticles, known as nano-sea-urchins (NSUs). The probability of the "on" process in one photon luminescent emission intermittency of NSUs increases due to the strong electric field of SPR. This mechanism is explained by the reaction potential threshold model we propose here. Furthermore, the ameliorated photoluminescence of NSUs is strong enough to excite waterweed bioluminescence and can act as an in vivo bio-light emitting device, which has potential applications in cytotoxicity, bio-imaging and bio-labeling.