A team of researchers have made an LED tech breakthrough that opens the door for new hybrid optoelectronic devices.
A group of researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, succeeded in moving electricity through insulating particles that aren’t typically capable of conducting electricity.
The particles, insulating lanthanide nanoparticles (LnNPs), are made up of various elements including some rare-earth elements such as neodymium and ytterbium, and are known to shine brightly when placed under light but often fail to conduct electricity.
To circumvent this, the researchers investigated new methods to hybridise the particles, using 9-ACA organic dye modules with the LnNPs which allowed the researchers to replace the surface insulators on the particles, allowing them to be charged using a triplet energy transfer technique.
The surface insulators of the LnNPs were replaced, allowing the researchers to bypass the traditional problem caused by the energy gap of LnNPs, creating opportunities for these particles to be used in more expansive LED applications.
When these changes were made, researchers were able to inject electrons into the organic layer of the LnNPs, creating what the researchers called ‘Excitons’. The energy is then transferred to lanthanide ions, allowing them to emit an almost completely pure near-infrared light, which the researchers claim can outperform most other organic NIR LEDs in both narrowness and efficiency.
The researchers say that their LnNP based LEDs will allow for widely tuneable EL properties by changing the type and concentration of lanthanide dopants, opening a new field of hybrid optoelectronic devices and new opportunities for electrically driven excitation sources for use in biomedical and optoelectronic applications.