Understanding how charge carriers (electrons and holes) behave at material interfaces is important for a number of energy-based technology applications such as fuel cells, batteries, electro- and photo-catalysts, and photovoltaic devices. Such applications rely on rapid charge transfer between these boundaries to drive energy-conversion processes. Now, a team of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have studied how excited electrons and holes interact at interface surfaces on fast timescales using a technique called high harmonic generation (HHG) transient absorption spectroscopy. The technique, performed in a liquid environment for the first time in this work, is a powerful new tool for studying charge carrier behaviour in more detail than ever before….
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/58716
