photon upconversion tagged posts

A typical solar cell, at max, converts <33% of light into electricity, so researchers have been working to find ways to surpass this limit. In the past, scientists have put an extra photon upconversion filter before or after the cell to catch the low energy, unused light and convert it into usable, high-energy light. But, FSU Assistant Prof Hanson wanted to integrate this process directly into the cell.

The researchers did this by using self-assembly. Through a soaking procedure, they assembled 2 molecules, an acceptor and sensitizer, on a surface which work in concert to perform photon upconverion, ie via triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA-UC) combining 2 low energy, green photons to generate a higher energy, blue photon, which can then be used to generate electricity...

>>could improve Med Imaging/ Cancer Rx’s + Increase Solar Cell efficency by 25 – 30%. Goal is to turn low-energy colors of light, such as red, into higher-energy colors, like blue/green. A traditional solar cell can only absorb light with energy above a certain threshold. Infrared light passes right through, its energy untapped. But if low-energy could be transformed into higher-energy light, a solar cell could absorb more.

UD’s College of Engineering’s A/Prof Matthew Doty said; “You can’t simply turn a red photon into a blue one, but you can combine the energy from two or more red photons to make one blue photon.” …”Photon upconversion” isn’t new but UD team’s approach is. They want to design a new kind of semiconductor nanostructure that will act like a ratchet...