Iron sensitizer converts light to electrons with 92% yield.

Tobias Harlang, Yizhu Liu, Olga Gordivska, Lisa Fredin, Carlito Ponseca, Ping Huang, Pavel Chabera, Kasper Kjaer, Helena Mateos, Jens Uhlig, Reiner Lomoth, Reine Wallenberg, Stenbjörn Styring, Petter Persson, Villy Sundström, Kenneth Wärnmark

Forskningsoutput: TidskriftsbidragArtikel i vetenskaplig tidskriftPeer review

Sammanfattning

Solar energy conversion in photovoltaics or photocatalysis involves light harvesting, or sensitization, of a semiconductor or catalyst as a first step. Rare elements are frequently used for this purpose, but they are obviously not ideal for large-scale implementation. Great efforts have been made to replace the widely used ruthenium with more abundant analogues like iron, but without much success due to the very short-lived excited states of the resulting iron complexes. Here, we describe the development of an iron-nitrogen-heterocyclic-carbene sensitizer with an excited-state lifetime that is nearly a thousand-fold longer than that of traditional iron polypyridyl complexes. By the use of electron paramagnetic resonance, transient absorption spectroscopy, transient terahertz spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations, we show that the iron complex generates photoelectrons in the conduction band of titanium dioxide with a quantum yield of 92% from the (3)MLCT (metal-to-ligand charge transfer) state. These results open up possibilities to develop solar energy-converting materials based on abundant elements.
Originalspråkengelska
Sidor (från-till)883-889
TidskriftNature Chemistry
Volym7
Nummer11
DOI
StatusPublished - 2015

Bibliografisk information

The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015.
The record was previously connected to the following departments: Centre for Analysis and Synthesis (011001266), Theoretical Chemistry (S) (011001039), Chemical Physics (S) (011001060)

Ämnesklassifikation (UKÄ)

  • Oorganisk kemi

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