Timothy Schmidt: Photochemical Upconversion of Light for Renewable Energy and More

It has been abundantly demonstrated that certain molecular compositions are capable of photochemical upconversion (PUC), where lower energy photons are converted to higher energy photons, sometimes with quantum efficiencies approaching 50%. PUC has been applied to solar cells, increasing the EQE of the devices in the region below the bandgap of the device. There remain challenges, though, to the realization of efficient photochemical upconversion under low levels of incident light, and the incorporation of a liquid upconversion medium into a device. This talk will address these challenges and our progress towards meeting them.

Tim Schmidt obtained his PhD from Cambridge in 2002. He was appointed to The University of Sydney in 2004, and in 2014 moved to University of New South Wales as Professor and ARC Future Fellow. His research straddles many areas of spectroscopy with applications to renewable energy, astrochemistry and atmospheric chemistry.