Management of singlet and triplet excitons for efficient white organic light-emitting devices

With energy conservation high on the political agenda, the search for economical light sources is a hot topic. An advance reported this week could be an important step in the field. It introduces a new architecture for making organic light-emitting devices that produce white light suitable for solid-state lighting. What is new is the use of fluorescent and phosphorescent light-emitting dopants arranged to optimize harvesting of the electric charge and achieve potentially 100% internal quantum efficiency. Technology of this type has the potential to make OLEDs (organic light emitting devices) much more efficient than incandescent lighting. Even at an early stage of development this new source is up to 75% more efficient than today's incandescent sources at similar brightnesses.