Multi-exciton Generation in Organic Molecules via Singlet Exciton Fission

Optimizing light harvesting has been a critical part for developing efficient photon-conversion technologies. Nature provides a blue-print through the light-harvesting machinery based on precise aggregate arrangements of multiple chromophores hosted on protein frameworks.[1]  However all of these light harvesting pigment-protein complexes operate under the “one-exciton per one-photon” absorption paradigm. Recently it has been recognized that artificial molecular aggregates with a specific energy structure of the molecular triplet states can show propensity for multi-exciton generation through a process called singlet exciton fission.[2,3] In this colloquium, I will provide an overview of how singlet fission works, and discuss the potential rules for making useful photon-conversion devices based on some of our recent mechanistic work in this rapidly emerging area.[4, 5, 6, 7]

References:
1. Lokstein, H.; Renger, G.; and Götze, J. P.; Molecules 2021, 26, 3378
2. Smith, M. B.; Michl, J.; Chemical Review 2010, 110, 6891
3. Rao, A.; Friend, R. H., Nature Reviews Materials 2017, 2, 1
4. Krishnapriya, K.C. and Roy, P. et al.; Nature Communications. 2019, 10, 33
5. Kundu, A.; Dasgupta, J.; Journal Physical Chemistry Letters 2021, 12, 5, 1468
6. Maity, N., Kim, W., Panjwani, N.A. et al.; Nature Communications, 2022, 13, 5244
7. Bansal, D. and Kundu, A. et al.; Chemical Science 2022, 13, 11506