Photon harvesting glasses

Synthesis and photon harvesting properties of a series of lead phosphate glass-fullerene (C60) composites and those of a group of Er+3 activated upconverting tellurite glasses are reported. On exposure to UV-VIS light, the glass-fullerene (C60) composites were found to harvest the energy of the incident photons through creation of long lived charge separated Pb+3holes and C60/(C60)n anions in the media. The Er+3 activated tellurite glasses, on the other hand, were found to efficiently convert NIR photons to VIS light using the upconversion property of the activator ions. All these properties of the materials have shown prospect of their use in harvesting solar photons for photovoltaic energy conversion.