Photochemical upconversion is suppressed by high concentrations of molecular sensitizers†
Abstract
Photochemical upconversion uses sensitized triplet–triplet annihilation in bimolecular compositions to convert lower energy photons to higher energy photons. For high efficiency under low illumination, usually a high sensitizer concentration is desirable. However, here we show that the upconversion sensitizer can reduce the emitter triplet lifetime by dynamic quenching, with rate constants on the order 106 M−1 s−1, leading to diminishing returns beyond a certain concentration. These results serve as a warning to designers of photochemical upconvertors that higher concentrations of sensitizers are not necessarily beneficial to upconversion performance.