In the quest to harvest light for electronics, the focal point is the moment when photons -- light particles -- encounter electrons, those negatively-charged subatomic particles that form the basis of our modern electronic lives. If conditions are right when electrons and photons meet, an exchange of energy can occur. Maximizing that transfer of energy is the key to making efficient light-captured energetics possible.
"This is the ideal, but finding high efficiency is very difficult," said University of Washington physics doctoral student Sanfeng Wu. "Researchers have been looking for materials that will let them do this -- one way is to make each absorbed photon transfer all of its energy to many electrons, instead of just one electron in traditional devices."
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