Engineering the Flow of Photo-Excitation Energy in Single Molecules

Aaron Sisto, Stanford University

Photo of Aaron Sisto

Photochemical conversion of solar energy involving light-harvesting molecules has been identified as a promising pathway to practical alternative energy technologies. Design of higher efficiency artificial photosynthetic systems necessitates a detailed understanding of photoexcitation and energy transfer processes. Here, we use time-dependent density functional theory to describe the electronic structure and photoexcitation in dendrimeric systems. Absorption spectra and electronic relaxation mechanisms of a wide range of dendrimers are computed and agreement with recent experiments is discussed.

Abstract Author(s): Aaron Sisto, Todd Martinez