For decades, ultrafast time‐resolved spectroscopy has found its way into an increasing number of applications. It has become a vital technique to investigate energy conversion processes and charge transfer dynamics in optoelectronic systems such as solar cells and solar‐driven photocatalytic applications. The understanding of charge transfer and photochemical reactions can help optimize and improve the performance of relevant devices with solar energy conversion processes. Here, the fundamental principles of photochemical and photophysical processes in photoinduced reactions, in which the fundamental charge carrier dynamic processes include interfacial electron transfer, singlet excitons, triplet excitons, excitons fission, and recombination, are reviewed. Transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy techniques provide a good understanding of the energy/electron transfer processes. These processes, including excited state generation and interfacial energy/electron transfer, are dominate constituents of solar energy conversion applications, for example, dye‐sensitized solar cells and photocatalysis. An outlook for intrinsic electron/energy transfer dynamics via TA spectroscopic characterization is provided, establishing a foundation for the rational design of solar energy conversion devices.

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A facile, cost-effective, non-toxic, and surfactant-free route has been developed to synthesize MoS2/carbon (MoS2/C) nanocomposites. Potassium humate consists of a wide variety of oxygen-containing functional groups, which is considered as promising candidates for functionalization of graphene. Using potassium humate as carbon source, two-dimensional MoS2/C nanosheets with irregular shape were synthesized via a stabilized co-precipitation/calcination process. Electrochemical performance of the samples as an anode of lithium ion battery was measured, demonstrating that the MoS2/C nanocomposite calcinated at 700 °C (MoS2/C-700) electrode showed outstanding performance with a high discharge capacity of 554.9 mAh g− 1 at a current density of 100 mA g− 1 and the Coulomb efficiency of the sample maintained a high level of approximately 100% after the first 3 cycles. Simultaneously, the MoS2/C-700 electrode exhibited good cycling stability and rate performance. The success in synthesizing MoS2/C nanocomposites via co-precipitation/calcination route may pave a new way to realize promising anode materials for high-performance lithium ion batteries.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s11671-018-2537-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.