To combine two low-energy photons into one high-energy photon efficiently, the energy must be able to hop freely, but not too quickly, between randomly oriented molecules of a solid. This Kobe University discovery provides a much-needed design guideline for developing materials for more efficient PV cells, displays, or even anti-cancer therapies.
Kobe University photoscientist KOBORI Yasuhiro and his research group have been working on a property called the"electron spin states" of moving and interacting excited states. They realized that their expertise was exactly what was needed to solve the problem of up-conversion and applied it on a material especially suitable for their analysis.
These results finally yield a guideline for how to design highly efficient photon up-conversion materials that is based on the knowledge of the process's microscopic mechanism. Kobori explains why this excited him.
A team of researchers has demonstrated a way to use low-energy, visible light to produce polymer gel objects from pure monomer solutions. The work not only poses a potential solution to current ...