Professor Nobuo Kimizuka of Kyushu University and others have succeeded in streamlining up-conversion with sunlight.It is a technology that enhances the quality of the energy of light, and even light that cannot be used for power generation with solar cells such as infrared rays can be converted into light suitable for power generation such as visible light and ultraviolet rays.Infrared rays account for as much as 50% of sunlight, which is expected to significantly improve power generation efficiency.
In this research, instead of shining a second light on a molecule that has stored energy by shining light once, we aimed to store high energy in one molecule by colliding them and transferring energy.The key was how to efficiently transfer energy between molecules, but this was made possible by regularly arranging the molecules in crystals with innumerable pores.In this way, we succeeded for the first time in the world in up-conversion with light as weak as sunlight.
The up-conversion technology developed this time will be a breakthrough for more efficient use of sunlight, which was previously thought to be used for power generation only about half, no matter how efficient it is.Furthermore, since this method can be incorporated into plastic, it is thought that it can be applied to solar cells that can be bent in the future.
