Ian J. McNeil
- Courses2
- Reviews6
- School: Bridgewater College
- Campus:
- Department: Chemistry
- Email address: Join to see
- Phone: Join to see
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Location:
402 E College St
Bridgewater, VA - 22812 - Dates at Bridgewater College: February 2014 - December 2018
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Biography
Bridgewater College - Chemistry
Experience
Bridgewater College
Visiting Assistant Professor
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Bridgewater College. I will be developing and teaching the new Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences course in the fall semester and the Physical Chemistry course with a new lab component in the spring semester. I will also be teaching a section of the general chemistry lecture and lab course in both semesters as well.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research Assistant
I am investigating the electron injection and charge transport processes upon photoexcitation of dye-sensitized nanoparticle films. I have incorporated time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) electronics into a two-photon laser scanning microscope set-up for imaging and localized excitation capabilities. Other projects have included single molecule imaging of ruthenium polypyridal chromophores to characterize their blinking behaviors as well as constructing a total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscope set-up for imaging flow-stretched DNA.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Teaching Assistant
Ian worked at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Teaching Assistant
Education
Bridgewater College
Bachelor of Science (BS)
Chemistry
Bridgewater College
Visiting Assistant Professor
I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Bridgewater College. I will be developing and teaching the new Physical Chemistry for Life Sciences course in the fall semester and the Physical Chemistry course with a new lab component in the spring semester. I will also be teaching a section of the general chemistry lecture and lab course in both semesters as well.University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Physical Chemistry
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research Assistant
I am investigating the electron injection and charge transport processes upon photoexcitation of dye-sensitized nanoparticle films. I have incorporated time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) electronics into a two-photon laser scanning microscope set-up for imaging and localized excitation capabilities. Other projects have included single molecule imaging of ruthenium polypyridal chromophores to characterize their blinking behaviors as well as constructing a total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscope set-up for imaging flow-stretched DNA.University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Teaching Assistant
Publications
Power-Law Kinetics in Photoluminescence of Dye-Sensitized Nanoparticle Films: Implications for Electron Injection and Charge Transport
The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Dye-sensitized solar cells have provided a model to inexpensively harness solar energy, but the underlying physics that limit their efficiency are still not well understood. We probe electron injection in sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 films using time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) to measure time-dependent chromophore photoluminescence quenching. The time-dependent emission exhibits kinetics that become faster and more dispersive with increasing ionic concentrations in both water and acetonitrile; we quantify these trends by fitting the data using several kinetic models. Even more notably, we show that the residual emission under conditions that favor efficient electron injection exhibits a power-law decay in time. We attribute this highly dispersive kinetic behavior to electron injection from the dye into localized acceptor states of the TiO2 nanoparticle film, which exhibits a distribution of injection rate constants that depend on the energetic distribution of sub-band-gap trap states.
Power-Law Kinetics in Photoluminescence of Dye-Sensitized Nanoparticle Films: Implications for Electron Injection and Charge Transport
The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Dye-sensitized solar cells have provided a model to inexpensively harness solar energy, but the underlying physics that limit their efficiency are still not well understood. We probe electron injection in sensitized nanocrystalline TiO2 films using time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) to measure time-dependent chromophore photoluminescence quenching. The time-dependent emission exhibits kinetics that become faster and more dispersive with increasing ionic concentrations in both water and acetonitrile; we quantify these trends by fitting the data using several kinetic models. Even more notably, we show that the residual emission under conditions that favor efficient electron injection exhibits a power-law decay in time. We attribute this highly dispersive kinetic behavior to electron injection from the dye into localized acceptor states of the TiO2 nanoparticle film, which exhibits a distribution of injection rate constants that depend on the energetic distribution of sub-band-gap trap states.
Investigation of Factors That Affect Excited State Lifetime Distribution of Dye-Sensitized Nanoparticle Films
Journal of Physical Chemistry C
We investigate the influence of potential determining ions and applied electric potentials on the excited-state lifetime distribution of sensitized TiO2 nanoparticle films by using timecorrelated single photon counting to measure the time-dependent photoluminescence decay. The data are consistent with quenching by excited-state electron injection into localized semiconductor acceptor states that are distributed in energy. We show that the characteristic lifetime and the amount of dispersion in the lifetime distribution exhibit a strong correlation that is the same for all of the chemical additives and for the applied bias conditions. The universal nature of this correlation under conditions that affect the distribution of available acceptor states differently may be due to the exponential form of the TiO2 sub-bandgap density of states.
