Energy harvesting of non-emissive triplet excitons in tetracene by emissive PbS nanocrystals

Thompson, Nicholas J.; Wilson, Mark W.  B.; Congreve, Daniel N.; Brown, Patrick R.; Scherer, Jennifer M.; Bischof, Thomas S.; Wu, Mengfei; Geva, Nadav; Welborn, Matthew; Voorhis, Troy Van; Bulović, Vladimir; Bawendi, Moungi G.; Baldo, Marc A.

doi:10.1038/nmat4097

Title: Energy harvesting of non-emissive triplet excitons in tetracene by emissive PbS nanocrystals

Journal Article · Sun Oct 05 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Nature Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4097· OSTI ID:1386746

Thompson, Nicholas J.; Wilson, Mark W. B.; Congreve, Daniel N.; Brown, Patrick R.; Scherer, Jennifer M.; Bischof, Thomas S.; Wu, Mengfei; Geva, Nadav; Welborn, Matthew; Voorhis, Troy Van; Bulović, Vladimir; Bawendi, Moungi G.; Baldo, Marc A.

Triplet excitons are ubiquitous in organic optoelectronics, but they are often an undesirable energy sink because they are spin-forbidden from emitting light and their high binding energy hinders the generation of free electron–hole pairs. Harvesting their energy is consequently an important technological challenge. Here, we demonstrate direct excitonic energy transfer from ‘dark’ triplets in the organic semiconductor tetracene to colloidal PbS nanocrystals, thereby successfully harnessing molecular triplet excitons in the near infrared. Steady-state excitation spectra, supported by transient photoluminescence studies, demonstrate that the transfer efficiency is at least (90 ± 13)%. The mechanism is a Dexter hopping process consisting of the simultaneous exchange of two electrons. Triplet exciton transfer to nanocrystals is expected to be broadly applicable in solar and near-infrared light-emitting applications, where effective molecular phosphors are lacking at present. In particular, this route to ‘brighten’ low-energy molecular triplet excitons may permit singlet exciton fission sensitization of conventional silicon solar cells.

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Research Organization:: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Excitonics (CE)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

DOE Contract Number:: SC0001088

OSTI ID:: 1386746

Journal Information:: Nature Materials, Vol. 13, Issue 11; Related Information: CE partners with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (lead); Brookhaven National Laboratory; Harvard University; ISSN 1476-1122

Publisher:: Nature Publishing Group

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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