高效光能转换新媒介:中空多壳层结构材料

New media for efficient light energy conversion: Hollow multi-shelled structures(HoMSs)

光能的捕获和利用为环境、能源和医学等多个领域的发展提供了广阔的前景.为了实现高效的光能转换,对作为媒介的光功能材料的设计至关重要.作为一种新兴的多级微纳材料,中空多壳层结构(hollow multi-shelled structures,HoMSs)材料在光能转换领域中具有诸多优势,其高效的光捕获能力、增强的光生电荷分离能力和灵活可调的壳壁组成等结构特性都能够有效提高材料对光能的转换效率.本文从HoMSs光功能材料在光能转换过程中的优势出发,总结了其在光催化、太阳能电池和光致发光等光能转换领域中的应用研究进展,并对该领域的发展趋势进行了展望.

Solar energy is one of the most promising alternative of fossil fuels and supplement of current energy consumption structure in the future to tackle increasingly serious energy crisis and environmental problems.The capture and utilization of solar/light energy have focused on four main categories,namely photo-thermal conversion,photo-electrical conversion,photo-chemical conversion and photoluminescence.They all involve with several major steps,which is the capture of photons,the absorption and conversion of photons,and the physical/chemical process on the surfaces/interfaces.In order to achieve high light energy conversion efficiency,to design excellent photo-functional materials as the media is the key point.Generally,photo-functional materials should process the corresponding advantages:(1)Good light harvesting ability;(2)efficient conversion of photons;(3)favored transportation of photo induced carriers;(4)accelerated reactions on the surface.Recently,hollow multi-shelled structures(HoMSs)material has shown its great potential for an advanced photo-functional material.As a class of special hierarchical micro/nanostructures,HoMSs material has more than one shell with corresponding internal cavities,and the multiple shells are arranged in order from outside to inside.Till now,HoMSs material has raised hot research topics in a wide range of fields including sensors,catalysts,adsorbents,drug cargos and so on.Specifically,theoretical and experimental results have discovered that the unique characteristics or features of HoMSs are extremely suitable for photo-related process,which gives many outstanding advantages in the field of light energy conversion.Excellent works have been published by groups across the world.It is about time to summarize recent works on using HoMSs as media for light conversion which converting light to other forms of energy.Starting from the merits of HoMSs photofunctional materials in the process of light energy conversion,we will discuss the efficient light capture ability,enhanced photogenerated charge separation ability,and flexible/adjustable shell-wall composition of different HoMSs in details.Sufficient comparisons of HoMSs with other materials will be made,which will clearly demonstrate how they effectively improve the overall conversion efficiency of the materials.Then we surveyed papers on different applications in the fields of photocatalysis,solar cell,photoluminescence,and so on.We also provide personal prospects for the opportunities and challenges in future development of the HoMSs photo-functional materials.