Hierarchical Assembly of Fluorescent Materials

Fluorescent Small-Molecule Ionic, Isolation Lattices (SMILES)

We discovered the brightest fluorescent materials and are exploring the underlying design rules to make optical and photonic materials. These materials are called small-molecule, ionic isolations lattices or SMILES for short. Some of our goals are to address scientific challenges around the hierarchical assembly of different molecular fluorophores into photonic materials and how the resulting packing and doping in nanoparticles and crystals can be used to understand and control the flow of excitons to productive sites for light emission and photon upconversion in solids. This approach lays the foundation for versatile, ‘plug-and-play’ photonic materials for communications, solar, display, and new quantum technologies. The start-up stemming from these materials, Halophore, stands ready to assist with commercialization.
 
These materials are being explored in collaboration Krishnan Raghavachari (Indiana University), Bo Laursen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Jerome Lacour (University of Geneva, Switzerland), Bo Albinsson (Chalmers University, Sweden), Grace Han (UC Santa Barbara), Vinod Menon (CUNY), Matt Sfeir (GaTech), Keisuje Goda (Tokyo University, Japan) and Junsheng Chen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark).