Characterizing the Molecular Arrangement of Copper Phthalocyanine on Graphene hexagonal-Boron Nitride Heterostructures

Project Description

Organic molecule-graphene heterostructures have exciting potential for the realization of bio-inspired heterostructures that have applications in biomedical diagnostic devices, photocatalysis, and hydrogen production. Phthalocyanines are biomimetic compounds that are close to the biologically important porphyrins, and are main candidates for artificial photosynthesis, a process that leads to a catalytic reduction of CO2. The functionalization of graphene with metal phthalocyanines has been shown to enhance graphene’s photoelectric and photocatalytic properties. The combination of phthalocyanines with graphene in the form of a heterostructure as shown in Fig. 1, may lead to a device with interesting photoelectrochemical properties that are highly tunable, thanks to graphene’s adjustable conductance and electronic density.

Instruments