Title: Photon management for solar energy through up- and down-conversion

Speaker: Victor Gray, Department of Chemistry - Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University

Email: victor.gray@kemi.uu.se

Time: July 3rd, 2023, 3:00 PM

Venue: Lecture Room 324, AISMST

Abstract:

Photovoltaic (PV) technology can convert sunlight into electricity directly, but it faces some limitations in how much of the solar spectrum it can use. To improve the efficiency and sustainability of solar energy, triplet–triplet annihilation upconversion (TTA-UC) and singlet fission (SF) based down conversion have gained increasing attention. These processes can reduce the losses caused by photons that are either too low or too high in energy for the PV. TTA-UC can combine two low-energy photons into one high-energy photon, while SF can split one high-energy photon into two low-energy photons.

Organic-inorganic hybrid materials comprising quantum dots and organic ligands have come up as an important type of materials in designing efficient up- and down-conversion systems. Here in I will discuss the role of the organic ligand in triplet energy transfer, a central step in both up- and down-conversion.

Brief Biography:

Dr. Gray received his Master's and Doctoral degrees from Chalmers University of Technology in 2013 and 2017, respectively. Between 2018 and 2021, he served as a postdoctoral researcher and visiting scholar at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK. In 2022, he joined the Department of Chemistry at Uppsala University as an independent researcher and principle investigator (PI).

Dr. Gray's main research involves materials for solar energy harvesting, including organic functional materials, inorganic quantum dots, and organic-inorganic hybrid materials, as well as their optoelectronic performance. He focuses the use of transient absorption spectroscopy (fs, ps, ns) and transient fluorescence spectroscopy to study the photo-physical properties of these materials.