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Updated: Mar 18, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Manipulating Molecular Organizations from "Dimer" to "Tetramer" for Water Evaporation and Thermoelectricity
Xuewei Fu1, Shuaijun Zhang1, Chengyuan Wang1
1School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials of Ministry of Education, Anhui University, 111 Jiulong Road, Hefei, Anhui 230093, China.
Abstract:
Four naphthalenediimide-based donor-acceptor structured organic photothermal materials are synthesized with systematically engineered donor-acceptor connecting manners and alkyl chains. The molecular organizations in the solid state are manipulated from "dimer" to "tetramer", which endows the latter with the widest absorption, presumably due to its strongest polarization effect. The "tetramer" material consistently outperforms the other three in solar-driven interfacial water evaporation and water-thermoelectricity cogeneration devices and is one of the highest-performance organic photothermal materials.
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