Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Eindhoven University of Technology have that they have created an organic semiconductor who is known as a chiral semiconductor who could dramatically improve the efficiency of the OLED display technology.
OLED has become a popular display technology in various devices, including televisions, commercial displays, smartphones, laptops, monitors and essentially everything with a screen. However, the technology is expensive and not very energy -efficient. In fact, researchers say that current OLED displays waste a “considerable amount of energy” due to the way screens filter the light.
A brighter, more efficient OLED
The research published in the Scientific Journal Science And summarized by the Department of Media Relations from the University of Cambridge claims that researchers have developed a new way to reduce these losses about a new kind of organic semiconductor called Chiral Semiconductor, which gives circularly polarized light. For a better understanding of what this means, we will use the university's own words:
“The semiconductor you have developed emits circular polarized light – the light contains information about the” handicap “of electrons. The inner structure of most inorganic semiconductors such as silicon is symmetrical, which means that electrons move through them without preferred direction.
In nature, however, molecules often have a chiral (left or right-handed) structure: like human hands are chiral molecules from each other. Chirality plays an important role in biological processes such as DNA formation, but is a difficult phenomenon to use and control the electronics.
By using molecular design tricks that were inspired by nature, the researchers created a chiral semiconductor by sitting stacks of half -conducting molecules to form orderly right -handed or left -handed spiral columns. “
Professor Sir Richard Friend from the University of Cavendish Laboratory, who jointly headed research, says that the new chiral semiconductors offer “incredible flexibility” and enables chip manufacturers to create new structures such as chiral LEDs.
“It is like working with a LEGO set with any kind of shape that you can imagine instead of just bricking,” said friend in a press release.
How the chiral semiconductor works
According to researchers, the chiral semiconductor is based on a material called Trizatruxen (deed), which integrates into a helical stack itself and spiral electrons along its structure. Imagine the thread of a screw.
When the self -organized crime is stimulated by blue or ultraviolet light, it emits light green light with strong circular polarization, which is an effect for researchers that was difficult to reach for semiconductors. In this way, the electrons can move efficiently and influence how light is emitted in an OLED display.
According to researchers, the researchers are “record-breaking efficiency, brightness and polarization levels”, which could change the way OLEDs are manufactured.
“We have essentially revised the standard recipe for the production of OLEDs as in our smartphones and enables us to catch a chiral structure within a stable, non-crystallizing matrix,” said Ritualparno Chowdhury from Cambridge from Cambridge. “This offers a practical way to create circular polarized LEDs, which has long since escaped the field.”
The researchers also say that this development also has an impact on quantum computers and sprintronics – a research area that uses the spin or inherent angle impulse of electrons to store and process information, which may lead to faster and secure computer systems.
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