July 8, 2014

Solar Energy Gets a Boost



UC Riverside chemists’ work on “singlet fission” can increase solar cell efficiency by as much as 30 percent

A perspective article published last month by University of California, Riverside chemists in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters was selected as an Editors Choice—an honor only a handful of research papers receive.  The perspective reviews the chemists’ work on “singlet fission,” a process in which a single photon generates a pair of excited states. This 1->2 conversion process, as it is known, has the potential to boost solar cell efficiency by as much as 30 percent.