Dr. Toma’s research interests include carbon neutral energy sources that are scalable, deployable, and cost effective, which will be required at an unprecedented scale to halt the energy crisis.  Photoelectrocatalysis is one of the most promising methods to store bulk renewable energy in solar fuels for use on demand.  Her specific interests lie in the synthesis, characterization, and integration of light absorber/catalyst assemblies, and on the development of in situ and operando microscopy techniques to study energy efficient systems.  The characterization of interfaces and materials properties in nano and mesostructured integrated devices, and the understanding of structure-activity relationships in such materials will enable the development of novel, highly efficient and stable functional systems for solar fuel production.

In JCAP, Dr. Toma is developing a research program based on materials synthesis, integration, and characterization focusing on:  synthesis and characterization of heterogenized electrocatalysts for the CO2 reduction reaction; synthesis of integrated light absorbers/catalyst systems as photoanodes and photocathodes; imaging of local chemical, morphological, and property inhomogeneity in nano and mesoscale materials by electron microscopy, conductive atomic force microscopy, and photoemission electron microscopy; imaging of interfaces and thin films by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy to promote the understanding of fundamental mechanism of catalytic systems, and structural and microscopy characterization by synchrotron-based techniques.

 

Selected Publications

Buckley, A., Lee, M., Cheng, T., Kazantsev, R., Larson, D., Goddard, W., Toste, D., Toma, F. Electrocatalysis at Organic-Metal Interfaces: Identification of Structure-Reactivity Relationships for CO2 Reduction at Modified Cu Surfaces. J. Am. Chem. Soc., DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b13655 (2019).

Chen, C., Pedrini, J., Gaulding, A., Kastl, C., Calafiore, G., Dhuey, S., Kuykendall, T., Cabrini, S., Toma, F., Aloni, S., Schwartzberg, A. Very High Refractive Index Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Photonic Conformal Coatings by Conversion of ALD Metal Oxides. Scientific Reports, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39115-3 (2019).

Gurudayal, G., Beeman, J., Bullock, J., Wang, H., Eichhorn, Towle, C., Javey, A., Toma, F., Mathews, N., Ager, J. Si Photocathode with Ag-Supported Dendritic Cu Catalyst for CO2 Reduction. Energy Environ. Sci., DOI: 10.1039/C8EE03547D (2019).

Jiang, C.-M., Reyes-Lillo, S., Liang, Y., Liu, Y.-S., Liu, G., Toma, F., Prendergast, D., Sharp, I., Cooper, J. The Electronic Structure and Performance Bottlenecks of CuFeO2 Photocathodes. Chemistry of Materials, DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00009 (2019).

Li, L., Yang, J., Ali-Loytty, H., Weng, T.-C., Toma, F., Sokaras, D., Sharp, I., Nilsson, A. Operando observation of chemical transformations of iridium oxide during photoelectrochemical water oxidation. ACS Appl. Energy Mater. DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.8b01945 (2019).

Jiang, C.-M., Segev, G., Hess, L. H., Liu, G., Zaborski, G., Toma, F. M., Cooper, J. K., Sharp, I. D. Composition-Dependent Functionality of Copper Vanadate Photoanodes. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b02977 (2018).

Liu, G., Eichhorn, J., Jiang, C.-M., Scott, M., Hess, L., Gregoire, J., Haber, J., Sharp, I., Toma, F. Interface engineering for light-driven water oxidation: Unravelling the passivating and catalytic mechanism in BiVO4 overlayers. Sustainable Energy Fuels, DOI: 10.1039/C8SE00473K (2018).

Segev, G., Jiang, C.-M., Cooper, J. K., Eichorn, J., Toma, F., Sharp, I. D. Quantification of the loss mechanisms in emerging water splitting photoanodes through empirical extraction of the spatial charge collection efficiency. Energy&Environmental Science, DOI: 10.1039/C7EE03486E (2018).

Drisdell, W. S., Leppert, L., Sutter-Fella, C. M., Lang, Y., Li, Y., Ngo, Q., Wan, L., Gul, S., Kroll, T., Sokaras, D., Javey, A., Yano, J., Neaton, J., Toma, F., Prendergast, D., and Sharp, I. Determining Atomic-scale Structure and Composition of Organo-lead Halide Perovskites by Combining High-resolution X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy and First-principles Calculations. ACS Energy Letters, DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00182 (2017).

Gaulding, E. A., Liu, G., Chen, C. T., Lobbert, L., Li, A., Segev, G., Eichhorn, J., Aloni, S., Schwartzberg, A., Sharp, I. D., and Toma, F. Fabrication and optical characterization of polystyrene opal templates for the synthesis of scalable, nanoporous (photo)electrocatalytic materials by electrodeposition. J. Mater. Chem. A, DOI:10.1039/C7TA00512A (2017).

Yang, J., Cooper, J. K., Toma, F. M., Walczak, K. A., Favaro, M., Beeman, J. W., Hess, L. H., Wang, C., Zhu, C., Gul, S., Yano, J., Kisielowski, C., Schwartzberg, A., Sharp, I. D. A multifunctional biphasic water splitting catalyst tailored for integration with high-performance semiconductor photoanodes. Nature Materials, 16, 335-341, DOI: 10.1038/nmat4794 (2017).

Chen, L. et al. Mo-Doped BiVO4 Photoanodes Synthesized by Reactive Sputtering. ChemSusChem, DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201402984 (2015).

Cooper, J. K. et al. Indirect Bandgap and Optical Properties of Monoclinic Bismuth Vanadate. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, DOI: 10.1021/jp512169w (2015).

Li, Y. et al. Fabrication of Planar Heterojunction Perovskite Solar Cells by Controlled Low-Pressure Vapor Annealing. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, DOI: 10.1021/jz502720a (2015).

Yang, J. H. et al. Efficient and Sustained Photoelectrochemical Water Oxidation by Cobalt Oxide/Silicon Photoanodes with Nanotextured Interfaces. Journal of the American Chemical Society 136, 6191-6194,DOI: 10.1021/ja501513t (2014).

For a complete list of publications, see JCAP publications page.

 

Additional Information

Profile at LBNL:  http://commons.lbl.gov/display/csd/Francesca+Toma/