UNSW researchers are working towards a new generation of solar technology that could make sunlight work smarter – by turning one particle of light into two packets of energy.

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Singlet fission photovoltaics enable the extraction of two electron–hole pairs from each higher-energy photon while leveraging a mature technology such as crystalline silicon (c-Si) as the underlying cell. Significant steps have been made in the development of singlet fission silicon photovoltaics, but all examples reported to date use tetracene as the singlet fission material. Tetracene is photochemically unstable and therefore unsuitable for commercial applications. Here we demonstrate singlet fission-derived triplet exciton transfer to c-Si from photochemically stable dipyrrolonaphthyridinedione (DPND) derivatives, with a thin layer of tin oxide as the passivation layer. An overlayer of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) was found to improve interface passivation further. These observations demonstrate that singlet fission photovoltaic devices can be made using stable and commercially viable materials.

Singlet fission photovoltaics enable the extraction of two electron–hole pairs from each higher-energy photon while leveraging a mature technology such as crystalline silicon (c-Si) as the underlying ...

Photochemical upconversion has several potential applications in optoelectronics. However, there is yet to be demonstrated a rational approach to high efficiencies in nanoscale solid state devices. He...