Bright color screens

Researchers at the Nanochemistry Laboratory of the Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering (University of Strasbourg & CNRS), in collaboration with University College London (United Kingdom) and Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), have shown that a subtle combination of light-emitting semiconducting polymers and small photocommutable molecules can be used to fabricate organic electroluminescent transistors that operate under remote optical control, thereby paving the way for a new generation of multifunctional optoelectronic devices.

Organic light-emitting transistors are widely recognized as key components in many optoelectronic applications. However, integrating multiple functions into a single electronic device remains a major challenge in this technology sector. Furthermore, the new generation of displays requires the encoding of high-density visual information into individual, extremely small pixels.

A team of researchers from Strasbourg, London, and Berlin has taken a major step forward by creating the first organic electroluminescent transistor that can be controlled remotely by light itself. They combined a custom-designed molecule—which acts as a miniaturized optical switch—with a light-emitting semiconducting polymer. When illuminated with ultraviolet and visible light, the molecular switch reversibly changes its electronic properties. As a result, the device’s electrical and optical response can be simultaneously modulated by light, which serves as a remote optical control.