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Abstract
Solid-state triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA) upconversion has significant potential for application in light harvesting, optoelectronic devices, and bioimaging. However, the high optical powers required to achieve efficient upconversion have inhibited its adoption. In this work, we demonstrate plasmon-enhanced near-infrared (NIR)-to-blue TTA upconversion in a monolayer WSe2/organic heterojunction. Under far-field excitation, the device reaches a threshold of 19 mW/cm2 and an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 0.17% with an anti-Stokes shift of 1.1 eV. Plasmon excitation lowers the threshold to 0.9 mW/cm2 and improves the EQE to 3.6%. We attribute the plasmon enhancement to surface plasmon polariton (SPP) near-field enhancement and dark-exciton absorption. Optimization of the WSe2 transfer process is identified as a key factor for the device performance. This work demonstrates that plasmon excitation overcomes the low far-field absorption of 2D transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) sensitizers. Consequently, monolayer TMDs can achieve solid-state upconversion with a performance among the best reported.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2026
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1021/acs.nanolett.6c00279
Archival?
Archival
Repository Citation
Lowe, Seamus S.; Butler, Satya P.; Anthony, John E.; Xie, Saien; and Rand, Barry P., "Plasmons Enable Ultralow Threshold Solid-State Triplet Fusion Upconversion with a 2D Sensitizer" (2026). Chemistry Faculty Publications. 232.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/chemistry_facpub/232

Notes/Citation Information
Publisher Copyright: © 2026 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society