Dynamic Exciton for Materials, Biology and Energy Conversion

This special topic, "Dynamic Exciton for Materials, Biology and Energy Conversion by manipulating locally excited (LE), charge-transfer (CT), and charge-separated (CS) states as well as effects of electrons and spins" will cover the broad range of “Dynamic Exciton”. Here, “exciton” is not only redefined as the LE state in molecular donor-acceptor (D-A) systems, but also this terminology is extended further to include the CT and CS states as the umbrella term of the three different states considering the emphasis on hole-electron pair. We aim to manipulate those states through mutual transformation in photochemistry, photophysics, and spin chemistry. Another important aspect of “exciton” is closely related to the “dynamic” aspect of “exciton”. For molecular D-A systems, it is pivotal to understand the mutual interplay between the behaviors of electrons and spins and the motions of atomic nuclei (i.e., vibration, rotation, fluctuation, and transfer) as well as of their collective motions in time-dependent manners. By restructuring the science in photochemistry under “dynamic exciton” and adopting the dynamic effects, it is highly expected to develop versatile photofunctions in electronics, energy, biology, medicine/medical care, and functional materials in the future. Thus, it will also cover applications related to this area, organic photovoltaics, organic-light-emitting diodes, photocatalysts, photoredox catalysts, chemically or physically induced dynamic nuclear and electron polarization, artificial photosynthesis, spin qubits, quantum sensing, magnetoreception and photo-triggered cell manipulation.

Guest Editors: Hiroshi Imahori, Prashant Kamat, Hironori Kaji, Yasuhiro Kobori, Kiminori Maeda, Michael R. Wasielewski, with JCP Editors Tim Lian, Renee Frontiera, Jennifer Ogilvie, and Qiang Shi.