TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental demonstration of photon upconversion via cooperative energy pooling
AU - Weingarten, Daniel H.
AU - Lacount, Michael D.
AU - Van De Lagemaat, Jao
AU - Rumbles, Garry
AU - Lusk, Mark T.
AU - Shaheen, Sean E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the NSF SOLAR Grant CHE-1125937. S.E.S. was supported by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog Program under the direction of Richard Weiner. J.v.d.L. and G.R. are supported by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
PY - 2017/3/15
Y1 - 2017/3/15
N2 - Photon upconversion is a fundamental interaction of light and matter that has applications in fields ranging from bioimaging to microfabrication. However, all photon upconversion methods demonstrated thus far involve challenging aspects, including requirements of high excitation intensities, degradation in ambient air, requirements of exotic materials or phases, or involvement of inherent energy loss processes. Here we experimentally demonstrate a mechanism of photon upconversion in a thin film, binary mixture of organic chromophores that provides a pathway to overcoming the aforementioned disadvantages. This singlet-based process, called Cooperative Energy Pooling (CEP), utilizes a sensitizer-acceptor design in which multiple photoexcited sensitizers resonantly and simultaneously transfer their energies to a higher-energy state on a single acceptor. Data from this proof-of-concept implementation is fit by a proposed model of the CEP process. Design guidelines are presented to facilitate further research and development of more optimized CEP systems.
AB - Photon upconversion is a fundamental interaction of light and matter that has applications in fields ranging from bioimaging to microfabrication. However, all photon upconversion methods demonstrated thus far involve challenging aspects, including requirements of high excitation intensities, degradation in ambient air, requirements of exotic materials or phases, or involvement of inherent energy loss processes. Here we experimentally demonstrate a mechanism of photon upconversion in a thin film, binary mixture of organic chromophores that provides a pathway to overcoming the aforementioned disadvantages. This singlet-based process, called Cooperative Energy Pooling (CEP), utilizes a sensitizer-acceptor design in which multiple photoexcited sensitizers resonantly and simultaneously transfer their energies to a higher-energy state on a single acceptor. Data from this proof-of-concept implementation is fit by a proposed model of the CEP process. Design guidelines are presented to facilitate further research and development of more optimized CEP systems.
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U2 - 10.1038/ncomms14808
DO - 10.1038/ncomms14808
M3 - Article
C2 - 28294129
AN - SCOPUS:85015314489
VL - 8
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
M1 - 14808
ER -