Photon upconversion—combining two or more low energy photons to generate a higher energy excited state—is an intriguing strategy for increasing the maximum theoretical solar cell efficiencies from 31% to greater than 40%. Molecular upconversion, <i>via</i> triplet-triplet annihillation (TTA), is particularly appealing strategy to achieve this goal because it can occur even under low intensity, non-coherent, solar irradiation. However, there are currently no examples of directly extracting charge from an upconverted state. In this presentation we introduce self-assembled bilayers on metal oxide films as a new structural motif to facilitate molecular photon upconversion. More importantly we demonstrate that this interface can be used to directly extract charge and generate photocurrent from the TTA unconverted state.

Photon upconversion and photocurrent generation via self-assembled bilayers on metal oxide surfaces

249th National Meeting (2015)

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