Up/Down Conversion with Hybrid Inorganic-Organic Devices
One of the frontiers in next generation optoelectronics is the fusion of organic and inorganic materials into hybrid devices which aim to combine the unique advantages of organic and inorganic systems to obtain technological advantages over conventional device architectures. Of particular importance is understanding the interfaces between such disparate systems, where ultrafast carrier/energy transfer processes and the role of triplets can dominate device operation. In this research stream we aim to first study the energy transfer processes both from inorganic systems to organic systems and vice versa, and then develop devices that perform efficient up/down conversion in the solid-state for high efficiency photovoltaics (PV) and next-generation luminescent devices.
The first model system we study is singlet fission (SF) down-conversion and triplet energy transfer from a molecular absorber into silicon solar cells. Energy transfer from singlet fission generated triplets into a silicon optoelectronic device is the “holy grail” of molecular down-conversion efforts to break the single junction Shockley−Queisser (SQ) solar cell efficiency limit, with the potential to increase this fundamental photovoltaic (PV) efficiency limit from 33.7% to >40%. This project is funded by an ARC DECRA Fellowship and an ARENA ultra low cost solar R&D grant in collaboration with colleagues across UNSW.
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The second model system we study is the use of an inorganic emitter to sensitize triplets in a nearby molecular layer for triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) based up-conversion, creating higher energy photons (“bluer”) from low energy near-infrared light (NIR) or energy states in the inorganic emitter. Our focus is on solid-state structures to enable technological relavence, either for photovoltaics (where the fundamental efficiency limit greatly increases) or for light-emitting/sensing applications. This project is funded by an ARC DECRA Fellowship and involves cooperation with the ARC Center in Exciton Science.
Relavent papers:
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