Proceedings of MATSUS Spring 2024 Conference (MATSUS24)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.matsus.2024.001
Publication date: 18th December 2023
Photon upconversion offers the prospect of combining low energy near-infrared radiation to make high energy photons in the visible wavelengths. The goal is to improve photovoltaics and introduce new bioimaging techniques. In order to harness the intrinsic ability of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals to couple strongly with light, it is important to efficiently outcouple energy from photoexcited quantum dots (QDs), much like how nature uses molecular antennas to direct light during photosynthesis. This talk focuses on the organic-inorganic interface for triplet-fusion based photon upconversion, where orbital overlap between the QD donor and molecular acceptor is critical for efficient energy transduction. In the past 8 years, we have learnt a great deal about how the electronic interactions between chalcogenide nanocrystals and acene conjugated molecules affect the photon upconversion quantum yield. We apply the lessons learnt to extending photon upconversion to silicon nanocrystal light absorbers, addressing synthetic challenges with invaluable insight from time-resolved spectroscopy.