Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Plants and photosynthetic bacteria (like the currently well-publicized cyanobacteria) have perfected complex and ingenious molecular machines capable of harvesting light and convert this green, renewable and free energy into chemical energy (energy under the form of complex molecules) that sustains all life on earth with the exception of some bacteria that live at the bottom of oceans. Nature does this with an amazing efficiency and control. Humans too try to build new and ever more efficient solar panels to collect this light and to convert it into electrical energy, instead of burning fossil fuels contributing to the green house effect by releasing the undesired carbon dioxide. This proposal aims at designing new polymeric materials that exploit new units in their backbone with the aim at finding thermally stable materials that will not age too rapidly and are capable to conduct or photoconduct electricity for photovoltalic cell applications (device that convert light into electricity). Similarly, the same investigated materials can also be examined for potential applications for LED (light emitting diodes). A new concept that is exposed in this proposal is that knowing the high efficiency with which nature collects and transports luminous energy, and more importantly why it is efficient, one can now mimic nature with organometallic molecular systems (molecules that contain one or many metals). These target molecules and polymers are reasonably accessible for students enrolled in the MSc and PhD programs or for postdoctoral fellows to prepare and investigate them in a reasonable length of time. This ""organometallic biomimicry"" is a totally new concept that we shall exploit.