Coherent Electronic Energy Transfer and Organic Photovoltaics

Abstract:

One of the most surprising and significant advances in the study of the photosynthetic light-harvesting process is the discovery that the electronic energy transfer (ET) might involve long-lived electronic coherences, also at physiologically relevant conditions. This means that the transfer of energy among different chromophores does not follow the expected classical incoherent hopping mechanism, but that quantum-mechanical laws can steer the migration of energy. The implications of such quantum transport regime, although currently under debate, might have a tremendous impact in our way to think about natural and artificial light-harvesting and suggest new directions for the development of artificial devices for the efficient capture and re-use of solar energy. Central to these discoveries has been the development of new ultrafast spectroscopic techniques, in particular two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy, which is now the primary tool to obtain clear and definitive experimental proof of such effects.

• Periodical: Advances in Science and Technology (Volume 93)
• Pages: 225-234
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AST.93.225
• Online since: October 2014
• Authors: Elisabetta Collini*
• Keywords: Energy Transfer, Light-Harvesting, Photovoltaics, Quantum Coherence, Ultrafast 2D Electronic Spectroscopy

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