Themed collection Highlighting materials research in the UK for optical, magnetic and electronic devices

Arylsilanes and siloxanes have been extensively studied as components of OLEDs. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in the utilization of arylsilanes and siloxanes as fluorophore emitters, hosts for phosphor emitters, hole and exciton blocking materials, and as electron and hole transporting materials.

Transient absorption spectroscopy is commonly used to probe the yield and kinetics of excited states of materials.

Incorporation of a class of selenium-based near-infrared emitters (benzotriazoloselenadiazoles) into PLEDs and direct comparison between thia- and selena-diazole donor–acceptor–donor units.

Preparation, photophysical studies, and optical wave-guiding properties of morphology controllable Eu(III) containing coordination polymers in the solid state.

Film properties and new templating behaviours in strong electron acceptor TCNQ.

In this paper, we report the synthesis of CdTe/ZnS quantum dots using molecular single source precursors, and we explore the tuning of the optical properties.

A small fraction of an acrylate liquid crystalline monomer (≤5%) is mixed into nematic and smectic liquid crystalline phases, and polymerised through the application of a voltage (electropolymerisation).

Drop-casting [Fe(bpp)₂][BF₄]₂ (bpp = 2,6-di[pyrazol-1-yl]pyridine) onto HOPG affords chain-of-beads nanostructures. SAMs of bpp derivatives with sulfur-containing tethers are also described.

Ab initio hybrid DFT theory of graphene dots in graphene oxide predicts optically active energy gaps over visible and UV spectra with strong absorption characteristics and long radiative recombination times.

Incubation of PANI films in physiological conditions leads to deprotonation and loss of dopant from the polymer backbone.

Band gap tuning by attaching aromatic and heterocyclic substituents on the vinylene bis(vinylquinolinyl)benzene moiety results in multifunctional organic semiconductors with high thermal stability and electron mobility.

Optimized growth of nanocrystalline cobalt doped ZnS thin films on glass substrates was carried out using the CBD method. The structural, morphological, magnetic and optical properties of deposited thin films have been studied.

A simple method is presented for the preparation of photostable phosphorescent polymer nanospheres.

In this article we present 1/f noise spectroscopy measurements relating to charge transport networks in poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) space-charge limited diode (SCLD) and organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices.

We report a novel solution deposition process for TFB in inverted OLEDs and demonstrate tuneable emission.

Hole mobility and injection efficiency from ambiently-prepared MoO₃, V₂O₅ and other solution-processable bottom contacts are investigated for polytriarylamine and its silafluorene and fluorene copolymers.

New deep blue emitting co-polymers are reported. In simple PLED architectures efficiency values as high as η_ext,max 3.9% and L_max 274 cd m⁻² with CIE (0.17, 0.07) are obtained.

The photoluminescence-based O₂ sensing properties of PLD ZnO nanorods at elevated temperatures depend sensitively on their (incident fluence determined) morphology and defect density.

Can the interplay between steric and electronic properties induced by end-groups be used to dictate self-organisation in soft materials?

We demonstrate the potential of perylene bisimide (PBI) for label-free sensing of organic molecules by investigating the change in electronic properties of five symmetric and asymmetric PBI derivatives, which share a common backbone, but are functionalised with various bay-area substituents.

Here we demonstrate that the use of macrosurfactants in the production of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):water dispersion allows to drastically change the semiconductor's molecular aggregation, leading to pronounced H- or J-like behaviour depending on the macrosurfactant used and the conditions selected to produce the dispersions.