Photovoltaic Effect and Photoconductivity in Laminated Organic Systems

Abstract

As a result of a wide variety of studies on photosynthesis in living plants and plant fragments, together with the development of photosensitive, photovoltaic junctions in inorganic crystals and the discovery and exploration of semiconduction in organic molecular substances, a suggestion has been made that the primary quantum conversion process in photosynthetic tissues involves the creation and separation of charge to opposite sides of an asymmetrically-constructed lamina, followed by the trapping of both the electrons and the holes which then lead to their respective chemical processes, namely reduction of carbon dioxide and oxidation of the water to oxygen. This has led us to study model systems as semiconductors with a view to creating an organic photovoltaic junction.