11-09 :: September 2011

nanotimes News in Brief

Timothy P. Tyler, Ryan E. Brock, Hunter J. Karmel, Tobin J. Marks, Mark C. Hersam: Organic Solar Cell Characteri- zation: Electronically Monodisperse Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Thin Films as Transparent Conducting Anodes in Organic Photovoltaic Devices, In: Advanced Energy Materials, Volume 1(2011), Issue 5, October, 2011, Pages 785-791, DOI:10.1002/aenm.201190021: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201190021

http://www.matsci.northwestern.edu/faculty/mch.html http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/

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Additional Research: Adam R. Hall, Johannes M. Keegstra, Matthew C. Duch, Mark C. Hersam, and Cees Dekker: Translocation of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes Through Solid-State Nano- pores, In: NANO Letters, Vol. 11(2011), Issue 6, June 08, 2011, Pages 2446-2450, DOI:10.1021/nl200873w: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl200873w

Yu Teng Liang, Baiju K. Vijayan, Kimberly A. Gray, and Mark C. Hersam: Minimizing Graphene Defects Enhances Titania Nanocomposite-Based Photocatalytic Reduction of CO2

for Improved Solar Fuel Production, In: NANO

Letters, Vol. 11 (2011), Issue 7, July 13, 2011, Pages 2865- 2870, DOI:10.1021/nl2012906: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl2012906

Graphene Shows Unusual Thermoelectric Response to Light

MIT researchers found that shining light on a sheet of graphene, treated so that it had two regions with different electrical properties, creates a temperature difference that, in turn, generates a current. Graphene heats inconsistently when illuminated by a laser, Jarillo-Herrero and his colleagues found: The material’s electrons, which carry current, are heated by the light, but the lattice of carbon nuclei that forms graphene’s backbone remains cool. It’s this difference in temperature within the material that produces the flow of electricity. This mechanism, dubbed a “hot-carrier” response, “is very unusual,” Jarillo-Herrero says. Because this phenomenon is so new, Jarillo-Herrero says it is hard to know what its ultimate applications might be. “Our work is mostly fundamental physics,” he says, but adds that “many people believe that graphene could be used for a whole variety of applications.” Nathaniel M. Gabor, Justin C. W. Song, Qiong Ma, Nityan L. Nair, Thiti Taychatanapat, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Tani- guchi, Leonid S. Levitov, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero: Hot Carrier–Assisted Intrinsic Photoresponse in Graphene, In: Science Express, October 6, 2011, DOI:10.1126/science.1211384: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1211384 http://jarilloherrero.mit.edu