Electrical conductor sparks interest
Chemists at Harvard and three other institutions have created a purified version of an organic semiconductor with electrical properties that put it among a small handful of organic compounds and that provides an important proof of concept for a screening process to find new compounds for solar panels. Alán Aspuru-Guzik, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology, worked with colleagues at Stanford University, Haverford College, and Clark University to identify, synthesize, and characterize the compound. It was based on a compound created several years ago by a team from Japan. The compound, with the tongue-twisting name of dinapthothienothiophene, intrigued Aspuru-Guzik and Haverford colleague Joshua Schrier, who decided to use computers to model several variations and screen them for improved electrical properties. That process resulted in seven candidate compounds, from which they selected one, whose synthesis was originally devised by Sergio Granados-Focil, an assistant professor of chemistry at Clark, and was synthesized in...