Your solar cells might never be the same. Quantum computers may have the source for their vast digital storage demands. And it’s all thanks to a discovery that shows how silicon can be partnered up with photons.
Researchers Discover New Way to Split and Sum Photons with Silicon – Science Blog
Excerpt:
A team of researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Riverside have found a way to produce a long-hypothesized phenomenon—the transfer of energy between silicon and organic, carbon-based molecules—in a breakthrough that has implications for information storage in quantum computing, solar energy conversion and medical imaging.
…..silicon has some problems when it comes to converting light into electricity…..
The new discovery provides scientists with a way to boost silicon’s efficiency by pairing it with a carbon-based material that converts blue photons into pairs of red photons that can be more efficiently used by silicon. This hybrid material can also be tweaked to operate in reverse, taking in red light and converting it into blue light, which has implications for medical treatments and quantum computing.
“The organic molecule we’ve paired silicon with is a type of carbon ash called anthracene. It’s basically soot,” said Sean Roberts, a UT Austin assistant professor of chemistry…..
“We now can finely tune this material to react to different wavelengths of light. Imagine, for quantum computing, being able to tweak and optimize a material to turn one blue photon into two red photons or two red photons into one blue. It’s perfect for information storage.”
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