Singlet Fission, a molecular approach to break the Shockley-Queisser limit for solar energy devices

Research Project, 2019 – 2022

The main bottleneck for solar energy devices that limits any single junction solar cell to a maximum overall efficiency of around 33%, is the so-called spectrum losses, sometimes referred to as the Shockley-Queisser limit. Those losses stem from a mismatch between the solar spectrum and the bandgap of the solar cell, i.e. an inability to make good use of both low and high energy photons. Here we present a novel strategy for tapping of a larger fraction of the solar spectrum in solar energy technologies, by down-converting photon energies through the photophysical process known as singlet fission. Our aim is to harvest the high energy photons of the solar spectrum and to transform these into energy matched photons and ultimately charge carri...