Developing near-infrared persistent room-temperature phosphorescence for down-conversion OLEDs

The continuous progress of persistent room-temperature phosphorescence (p-RTP) emitting in near infrared (NIR) with high potential for long-lifetime and flexible optoelectronic applications is spearheaded by the development of novel materials. Much of this interest is also due to the concomitant advantages of the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology.

Future OLED displays are envisioned to comprise an additional NIR pixel for imaging and security protocols. Equally such NIR OLEDs can be used as a monolithically manufactured light sources in bioimaging applications.

However, limited by the energy gap law, the majority of p-RTP materials emit in the visible region, NIR phosphors are rarely reported.

To solve this challenge, this project aims to progress along two clear research directions: i) engineering efficient NIR p-RTP emissive material systems and ii) developing well-performing (persistent) NIR OLEDs.

To construct NIR p-RTP material systems, we will put in action work packages (WPs) 1-2 by employing available organic materials to engineer host/guest emissive systems with high efficiency and stability.

The correlation of their photophysical properties to the molecular microenvironment will also be investigated using the state-of-the-art spectroscopy methodologies to elucidate the mechanisms.

WPs 3-4 will use established OLED fabrication routines to develop efficient NIR down-conversion OLED pixels with persistent emission and transfer the knowledge to an industrial R&D environment.

The multi-disciplinary project will bridge the gap between the fundamental material research of NIR p-RTP emission and the monolithic integration of these systems in actual OLEDs as down-conversion layers for advanced sensing applications through joint research in physics, engineering and material science.

I can perfectly bring in my existing skills, further broaden my expertise substantially and foster academic and industrial connections to build my future career network.