Quantum Photoelectrochemistry - Mastering Novel Photofunctionality in Molecular Systems and Complex Materials

This project concerns the mastering of innovative photofunctionality in a range of complex materials and molecular systems.

Photofunctionality includes light-harvesting and solar energy conversion processes of fundamental importance for photochemical applications towards molecular photovoltaics and photocatalysis.

Additionally, this also covers luminescence and emission processes in for example light-emitting devices, optical probes of materials properties and excited state processes, as well as phototherapies.

This proposal builds on recent discoveries of promising excited state properties in earth-abundant molecular materials with unconventional electronic characters that include both ligand-to-metal charge-transfer states in iron complexes, and metal-centered states in cobalt complexes that challenge a long-standing hegemony of metal-to-ligand charge-transfer processes in inorganic photochemistry.

We now propose to use an integrated combination of computational chemistry and time-resolved spectroscopy to develop the fundamental understanding of key processes including light-harvesting, excited state dynamics, charge transfer, excitation energy transfer, and luminescence properties in such new materials.

Contributing to the development of fundamentally new photofunctionality in a wide range of applications that include both molecular photovoltaics as well as photochemical and photocatalytic conversion systems is a key ambition.