Scientists generate two energetic electronic states from one photon

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Colorado, Boulder (UCB), have reported the first designed molecular system that produces two triplet states from an excited singlet state of a molecule, with essentially perfect efficiency. The breakthrough could lead to a 35 percent increase in light-harvesting yield in cells for photovoltaics and solar fuels. The experiments, using a process called singlet fission, demonstrated a 200 percent quantum yield for the creation of two triplets of the molecule 1,3-diphenylisobenzofuran (DPIBF) at low temperatures. The research has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.