External Electric Field Control of Exciton Motion in Porphyrin-Based Metal Organic Frameworks
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Porphyrins are excellent light-harvesting complexes. Presently they are unsuitable for photovoltaic applications, as their excellent light absorbance is compensated to a large extent by their poor transport properties, where most excitons are lost by recombination. Arranging porphyrins in regular, strongly bound, lattices of surface-anchored metal-organic frameworks (PP-SURMOFs) may facilitate charge carrier dissociation, but does not significantly enhance the conductive properties. In most cases, photogenerated excitons traverse undirected, Brownian motion through a hopping process, resulting in a substantial diffusion length to reach electrodes, leading to significant exciton loss through recombination. Here, we propose to guide exciton diffusion indirectly by an external electric field. We show that electric fields, even as strong as 1 V nm−1, do not affect the HOMO-LUMO gap of the porphyrins. However, fields of 0.1 V nm−1 and even less demonstrate a notable Stark effect, with slight band gap reductions, for some PP-SURMOFs. When applied as an electric field gradient, for instance, via the substrate, it creates a unidirectional hopping pathway for the excitons. Consequently, we expect a significant reduction of exciton diffusion length leading to increased utilization of photogenerated excitons as they reach the electrodes. This strategy holds promise for integrating photoactive molecules in photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | e202400180 |
Journal | Chemistry - A European Journal |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 33 |
Publication status | Published - 12 Jun 2024 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
PubMed | 38606436 |
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Keywords
Sustainable Development Goals
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Keywords
- Electric Field, Exciton, MOF, Photovoltaic cell, Porphyrin