TET-Lanthanide · Triplet Energy Transfer at Hybrid Organic-Lanthanide Nanoparticle Interfaces
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-03-01 → 2020-02-29
- EU contribution
- €183,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Triplet Energy Transfer at Hybrid Organic-Lanthanide Nanoparticle Interfaces
The generation, control and transfer of triplet excitons in molecular and hybrid systems is a hot topic in a variety of discipline, ranging from physics and chemistry to materials science and biology. This interest is driven by a range of triplet exciton-based applications, including light emission, photon upconversion, photocatalysis, sensing and photodynamic therapy. So far, molecular triplet excitons are manipulated through heavy-metal based spin-orbit coupling or control of the singlet-triplet energy splitting. Both approaches mainly tackle the luminescent harvesting of triplets and place strict constraints on the design of a molecular system. To overcome this limitation, it has recently been demonstrated to couple molecular triplets to semiconducting quantum dots and transfer energy between them. However, this approach is also limited only to energy transfer of triplets and the challenge of more broadly controlling the properties of triplet excitons remains unanswered. This project aims to develop a new platform, based on coupling lanthanide nanocrystals with molecular triplet excitons, to control molecular triplet dynamics for optoelectronics and photochemistry. In this project, we couple molecular triplet excitons to lanthanide-doped nanocrystals. The coupled system allows for the direct generation of molecular triplet excitons with near-infrared excitation and luminescent harvesting of the dark triplet excitons via transfer to lanthanide nanocrystals. Furthermore, we explore and investigate the fundamental science of the lanthanide nanoparticle-molecule coupled system. The coupled systems enable to overcome many of the limitations of using lanthanide nanocrystals or molecular triplet excitons individually, and open up new possibilities for optoelectronics, molecular sensing, upconversion, photocatalysis and bio-imaging.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The generation, control and transfer of triplet excitons in molecular and hybrid systems is of great interest for optoelectronic applications such as light emission, singlet fission and upconversion, as well as for sensitization and triggering photochemical reactions. Recently, the host group has discovered that it is possible to couple molecular triplet excitons to the f→f transitions of lanthanide nanocrystals, efficiently transferring energy between them. This allows for the direct generation of triplet excitons with near-IR excitation and luminescent harvesting of the dark triplet excitons via transfer to lanthanide nanocrystals. This discovery also opens up a promising new avenue for photochemistry/photocatalysis applications, as LnNPs are both non-toxic and highly photostable even within aqueous environments.The project will build on this discovery to develop the fundamental science of this new platform for optoelectronics and photochemistry. Specifically, we will develop a series of highly controlled solution phase systems, where organic molecules will be directly covalently attached to the lanthanide nanocrystals. The lanthanide doping concentration of the nanoparticles, as well as the distance between organic and lanthanide will be carefully controlled to produce model systems. These systems will then be studied with steady state and time resolved spectroscopy with the aim of elucidating the underlying mechanism controlling the triplet exciton transfer and coupling between triplets and lanthanide ions. We will also perform a proof of concept experiment to demonstrate the use of these systems for photo-catalysis. These fundamental investigations will open up new possibilities for optoelectronics, molecular sensing, upconversion, photocatalysis and bio-imaging.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union