Singlet fission

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jablonski-like diagram for singlet fission.

In the area of spectroscopy, singlet fission is a spin-allowed process whereby a singlet excited state converts to two triplet states. The phenomenon is observed in molecular crystals where the molecules are appropriately oriented such that one excited molecule can share energy with a neighboring ground state molecule. The process occurs on a picosecond timescale. The overall process is related to intersystem crossing whereby, in a single molecule, an excited singlet state converts to a lower energy excited triplet.[1]

History

The process of singlet fission was first introduced to describe the photophysics of anthracene in 1965.[2] Early studies on the effect of the magnetic field on the fluorescence of crystalline tetracene solidified understanding of singlet fission in polyacenes.

It has been suggested that singlet fission in organic photovoltaic materials has the potential to increase the efficiency of these devices. The detailed mechanism of the process is unknown. This area engages scientists in the fields of synthetic chemistry, theoretical chemistry, physics, engineering, and spectroscopy .

References

  1. ↑ Smith, Millicent B.; Michl, Josef (2010). "Singlet Fission". Chemical Reviews 110 (11): 6891–936. doi:10.1021/cr1002613. PMID 21053979. 
  2. ↑ Singh, S.; Jones, W. J.; Siebrand, W.; Stoicheff, B. P.; Schneider, W. G. J. Chem. Phys. 1965, 42, 330.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.