Faster, more efficient, and more adaptable technologies are widely seen as essential for the future of energy generation and information processing. Achieving those goals, however, requires new ways of understanding how materials behave at the smallest scales. An international research team from the Universities of Göttingen, Marburg, Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany, and the University of Graz in Austria has now reported a significant advance in this area.
The researchers brought together two classes of materials that have attracted intense interest in recent years: organic semiconductors and two-dimensional semiconductors. By examining how this combined system responds to light, using photoelectron spectroscopy together with many-body perturbation theory, they were able to probe ultrafast processes at the boundary between the two materials. These measurements capture events that unfold within one quadrillionth of a second, offering a direct view of microscopic energy transfer.
This unique blend of material properties could open the door to new technologies, including more efficient solar cells. The findings were published in Nature Physics.
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