Energy Transfer Kinetics in Photosynthesis as an Inspiration for Improving Organic Solar Cells

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Collins NganouM Mkandawire

Abstract

Clues to designing highly efficient organic solar cells may lie in understanding the architecture of light-harvesting systems and exciton energy transfer (EET) processes in very efficient photosynthetic organisms. Here, we compare the kinetics of excitation energy tunnelling from the intact phycobilisome (PBS) light-harvesting antenna system to the reaction center in photosystem II in intact cells of the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina with the charge transfer after conversion of photons into photocurrent in vertically aligned carbon nanotube (va-CNT) organic solar cells with poly(3-hexyl)thiophene (P3HT) as the pigment. We find that the kinetics in electron hole creation following excitation at 600 nm in both PBS and va-CNT solar cells to be 450 and 500 fs, respectively. The EET process has a 3 and 14 ps pathway in the PBS, while in va-CNT solar cell devices, the charge trapping in the CNT takes 11 and 258 ps. We show that the main hindrance to efficiency of va-CNT organic solar cells is the slow migration of the charges after exciton formation.

References

Mar 2, 1999·Journal of Structural Biology·R MacColl
Aug 6, 2002·Science·Ray H BaughmanWalt A de Heer
Dec 18, 2002·Accounts of Chemical Research·Hongjie Dai
Jul 9, 2004·Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta·Robert MacColl
Nov 25, 2005·Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences : Official Journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology·Zdenek PetrásekHann-Jörg Eckert
May 26, 2010·Chemical Communications : Chem Comm·Juan Luis DelgadoNazario Martín
Aug 31, 2010·Advanced Materials·Carsten DeibelVladimir Dyakonov
Nov 3, 2010·Journal of Molecular Biology·Liron DavidNoam Adir
Nov 18, 2010·Chemical Society Reviews·Christoph J BrabecJenny Nelson
Dec 12, 2012·Accounts of Chemical Research·Dennis A Dougherty
Dec 5, 2013·Progress in Polymer Science·M C Scharber, N S Sariciftci
Apr 15, 2014·Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology. B, Biology·F I KuzminovN V Karapetyan
May 8, 2014·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Randy Pat SabatiniRichard Eisenberg
Dec 4, 2014·Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences : Official Journal of the European Photochemistry Association and the European Society for Photobiology·A C NganouM Mkandawire
Feb 14, 2015·Scientific Reports·Yudai OgataKeiji Tanaka
Sep 1, 2014·Nature Physics·Elisabet RomeroRienk van Grondelle

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Citations

Jan 14, 2021·Molecules : a Journal of Synthetic Chemistry and Natural Product Chemistry·Mihaela BaibaracKahramon Mamatkulov

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Cell Migration

Cell migration is involved in a variety of physiological and pathological processes such as embryonic development, cancer metastasis, blood vessel formation and remoulding, tissue regeneration, immune surveillance and inflammation. Here is the latest research.