University of Kentucky
John Anthony received his B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from UCLA, where he studied the synthesis of dehydroannulenes. After two years of post-doctoral studies at UCLA focusing on the total synthesis of fullerene derivatives, he moved to the chemistry department at University of Kentucky, where he is now the C.W. Hammond Professor of Chemistry, as well as Associate Director of the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research.
In order to surpass the Shockley-Queisser limit on power conversion efficiency, schemes to manipulate high- and low-energy photons must be developed. In this talk, I will describe our use of crystal engineering techniques to enhance the singlet fission process, where one high-energy singlet exciton is converted into two lower-energy triplet excitons. Structural modifications that enhance and accelerate this process will be described, along with approaches to harvest the 'dark' triplet states formed by the fission process. I will also describe our search for new chromophore systems that allow triplet-triplet annihilation, which is a process where very low energy triplet excitons, too low in energy to be harvested by Si-based photovoltaics, can be combined into a higher energy photon that is able to be absorbed.
University of Kentucky