singlet fission tagged posts

Current methods of harvesting solar charges are expensive and inefficient—with a theoretical efficiency limit of 33%. New nanomaterials developed by researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY) could provide a pathway to more efficient and potentially affordable harvesting of solar energy.

The materials, created by scientists with the ASRC’s Nanoscience Initiative...

Electron spin. Spin, an intrinsic property of electrons, is related to the dynamics of electrons excited as a result of singlet fission – a process which could be used to extract energy in future solar cell technologies. Credit: Image provided by Leah Weiss

Physicists have successfully employed a powerful technique for studying electrons generated through singlet fission, a process which it is believed will be key to more efficient solar energy production in years to come. Their approach, reported in the journal Nature Physics, employed lasers, microwave radiation and magnetic fields to analyse the spin of excitons, which are energetically excited particles formed in molecular systems.

These are generated as a result of singlet fission, a process that researchers around the world are try...

The researchers, led by University of Cambridge, used ultrafast laser pulses to observe how a photon, can be converted into 2 energetically excited particles, known as spin-triplet excitons, through a process called singlet fission. If the process of singlet fission can be controlled, it could enable solar cells to double the amount of electrical current that can be extracted.

In conventional semiconductors such as silicon, when 1 photon is absorbed it leads to the formation of 1 free electron that can be harvested as electrical current. However certain materials undergo singlet fission instead, where the absorption of a photon leads to the formation of 2 spin-triplet excitons...