On February 27, 2026, Dirk Guldi delivered the colloquium “Adaptive Photon Management – From Light Capture to Conversion and Storage” at the School of Chemistry, UNSW, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Addressing the detailed balance limit of 33% in single-junction photovoltaics, he outlined molecular strategies to mitigate thermalization and sub-bandgap losses. Central to his approach is singlet fission in pentacene-based architectures, where one singlet exciton splits into two triplets, effectively doubling charge-carrier generation. Covalent donor–acceptor conjugates expand the absorption window via Förster resonance energy transfer, with efficiency governed not only by distance and spectral overlap but critically by transition dipole alignment. Complementary triplet–triplet annihilation up-conversion in tetracene systems was presented as a route to harvest low-energy photons. The lecture concluded with perspectives on interfacial electron transfer for post-fission light storage, underscoring acenes as versatile platforms for next-generation solar energy conversion.
Link
On February 27, 2026, Dirk Guldi delivered the colloquium “Adaptive Photon Management – From Light Capture to Conversion and Storage” at the School of Chemistry, UNSW, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Addressing the detailed balance limit of 33% in single-junction photovoltaics, he outlined molecular strategies to mitigate thermalization and sub-bandgap losses. Central to his approach is singlet fission in pentacene-based architectures, where one singlet exciton splits into two triplets, effectively doubling charge-carrier generation. Covalent donor–acceptor conjugates expand the absorption window via Förster resonance energy transfer, with efficiency governed not only by distance and spectral overlap but critically by transition dipole alignment. Complementary triplet–triplet annihilation up-conversion in tetracene systems was presented as a route to harvest low-energy photons. The lecture concluded with perspectives on interfacial electron transfer for post-fission light storage, underscoring acenes as versatile platforms for next-generation solar energy conversion.
Link