Proton shuttle boosts triplet energy transfer efficiency

Researchers led by Kaifeng Wu report a proton shuttle-assisted triplet energy transfer (PS-TET) mechanism, where transient proton movement between phenol and pyridine facilitates rapid spin-triplet energy transfer from ZnSe quantum dots to surface dyads, with proton tunneling contributing to temperature-stable transfer. The work suggests PS-TET can be tuned to boost energy flow for catalysis and photonic devices or suppressed to improve solar cells and lasers, and could influence design of energy-storage systems such as quantum batteries.