P. Vivek

Natural dye extract of lawsonia inermis seed as photo sensitizer for titanium dioxide based dye sensitized solar cells.

Natural dye extract of lawsonia inermis seed were used as photo sensitizer to fabricate titanium dioxide nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cells. Pure titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles in anatase phase were synthesized by sol-gel technique and pre dye treated TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized using modified sol-gel technique by mixing lawsone pigment rich natural dye during the synthesis itself. This pre dye treatment with natural dye has yielded colored TiO2 nanoparticles with uniform adsorption of natural dye, reduced agglomeration, less dye aggregation and improved morphology. The pure and pre dye treated TiO2 nanoparticles were subjected to structural, optical, spectral and morphological studies. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) fabricated using the pre dye treated and pure TiO2 nanoparticles sensitized by natural dye extract of lawsonia inermis seed showed a promising solar light to electron conversion efficiency of 1.47% and 1% respectively. The pre dye treated TiO2 based DSSC showed an improved efficiency of 47% when compared to that of conventional DSSC.

Performance of Caesalpinia sappan heartwood extract as photo sensitizer for dye sensitized solar cells

A natural dye extracted from Caesalpinia sappan heartwood was used as photo sensitizer for the first time to fabricate titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cells. Brazilin and brazilein are the major pigments present in the natural dye and their optimized molecular structure were calculated using Density functional theory (DFT) at 6-31G (d) level. The HOMO-LUMO were performed to reveal the energy gap using optimized structure. Pure TiO2 nanoparticles in anatase phase were synthesized by sol-gel technique. The pure and natural dye sensitized TiO2 nanoparticles were subjected to structural, optical, spectral and morphological studies. Low cost and environment friendly dye sensitized solar cells were fabricated using natural dye sensitized TiO2 based photo anode. The solar light to electron conversion efficiency of Caesalpinia sappan heartwood extract sensitized dye sensitized solar cell is 1.1%.

Growth, spectral, anisotropic, second and third order nonlinear optical studies on potential nonlinear optical crystal anilinium perchlorate (AP) for NLO device fabrications

A new semiorganic nonlinear optical material anilinium perchlorate was grown by the slow evaporation technique using water as solvent. The solubility and meta stable zone width were determined. The anilinium perchlorate crystal belongs to orthorhombic system with noncentrosymmetric space group P2₁2₁2₁. The presence of various functional groups was identified by FT-IR FT-Raman spectrum. The morphology of the anilinium perchlorate crystal was studied. From this morphology, anilinium perchlorate crystal plate was cut along three prominent planes, such as (001), (010) and (20-1). The thermal stability of the crystal was determined using TG-DTA studies. The hardness, laser damage threshold, transmittance, reflectance, experimental refractive index of the crystal was found. The particle size dependent second harmonic generation efficiency for anilinium perchlorate was evaluated by Kurtz-Perry powder method using Nd:YAG laser, which established the existence of phase matching. The third order nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient of the grown crystal were measured by Z-scan studies.

A combined experimental and quantum chemical analysis to explore the nonlinear optical activity of guanidinium L-monohydrogen tartrate.

Single crystal of guanidinium l-monohydrogen tartrate (GuHT) was grown by slow evaporation technique and was characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction to confirm its crystal structure. UV-vis spectral study reveal that the GuHT crystal is optically transparent and its band gap was estimated from the transmittance data. The laser induced surface damage threshold study was carried out for the grown crystal using Nd:YAG laser. The second harmonic generation (SHG) nonlinearity of the grown crystalline sample was measured by Kurtz and Perry powder technique. The optimized molecular geometry, first order hyperpolarizability, dipole moment and polarizability of GuHT were obtained by density functional theory (DFT) using B3LYP/6-31G (d,p) level of basis set. The thermodynamic functions of the title compound was computed. The HOMO-LUMO energy gap explains the charge transfer interactions that take place within the molecule.