Towards a luminescent future with carbon dots

Title : Towards a luminescent future with carbon dots

Abstract:

In search of alternate eco-friendly materials for energy production, scientists stumbled upon yet another form of Carbon, called Carbon quantum dots (QD) or Graphene QD. These nanodots are colourful forms of Carbon exhibiting strong absorption and fluorescence characteristics. They are being actively pursued owing to their biocompatibility, wide availability of precursors, ease of synthesis methods, tuneable surface functionalities, chemical inertness, controllable size, and diverse applications. Their emission can be both excitation wavelength-dependant or independent, which depends solely on the surface groups present. Consequently, they have shown exciting results in the field of sensing (chemical and optical), photovoltaics, photocatalysis, LED, bioimaging, and others. Herein a combination of carbon dots with perylene diimide (PDI) dye has been used to prepare white light emitting composite. The composite was prepared by doping carbon dots with PDI dye and vice-versa. Their application in solar cells generated exciting results, shedding insight on their interaction.

Biography:

Dr. Karan Surana had completed his Ph.D from Sharda University, Greater Noida, India in the field of ‘quantum dot solar cells’, prior to which he obtained his Master’s degree in Nanoscience and Technology. In his 8 years of research work he has gained expertise in synthesis and characterization of quantum dots and carbon materials, and in fabricating solar cells, supercapacitors, and batteries. He has published 19 research papers in international peer reviewed journals, 5 papers in conference proceedings and one book chapter. He is currently working as a UGC-DS Kothari Post-doc fellow at Department of Chemistry, Sardar Patel University, Gujarat.