Photosynthesis is nature's way of converting light energy to chemical energy. Happening mostly with plants, the leaves are the primary site of the process of photosynthesis. Professor Max Crossley's molecular electronics group at the University of Sydney has tapped into this process, in the hopes that by mimicking aspects of natural photosynthesis, synthetic molecules in plants may one day form the basis of highly efficient solar cells.

Creating a synthetic form of chlorophyll that performs the first part of the process (that would be the conversion of light energy to electrical energy), Crossley and the team shaped it like a soccer ball, with a dendrimer scaffold, a highly-branched nanosized polymer made of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Attached to the dendrimer are synthetic versions of the light-harvesting pigment porphyrin. These synthetic molecules, arranged in a dense array, then act in concert to efficiently collect photons of light. Buckyballs, or spherical carbon molecules, then sit between the porphyrin and soak up electrons from the photons of collected light.

"There has to be a lot of them because if there was only one it would be a very inefficient process," says Crossley.

The team has recently presented its research at the International Conference on Porphyrins and Phtalocyanines in Rome. Meanwhile, Dr. Deanna D'Alessandro, team member and postdoctoral researcher, is one of 16 scientists who are set to present their research to the public for the first time under the Fresh Science initiative.