Room Temperature Phosphorescence from Natural, Organic Emitters and Their Application in Industrially Compostable Programmable Luminescent Tags

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Organic semiconductors provide the potential of biodegradable technologies, but prototypes do only rarely exist. Transparent, ultrathin programmable luminescent tags (PLTs) are presented for minimalistic yet efficient information storage that are fully made from biodegradable or at least industrially compostable, ready-to-use materials (bioPLTs). As natural emitters, the quinoline alkaloids show sufficient room temperature phosphorescence when being embedded in polymer matrices with cinchonine exhibiting superior performance. Polylactic acid provides a solution for both the matrix material and the flexible substrate. Room temperature phosphorescence can be locally controlled by the oxygen concentration in the film by using Exceval as additional oxygen blocking layers. These bioPLTs exhibit all function-defining characteristics also found in their regular nonenvironmentally degradable analogs and, additionally, provide a simplified, high-contrast readout under continuous-wave illumination as a consequence of the unique luminescence properties of the natural emitter cinchonine. Limitations for flexible devices arise from limited thermal stability of the polylactic acid foil used as substrate allowing only for one writing cycle and preventing an annealing step during fabrication. Few-cycle reprogramming is possible when using the architecture of the bioPLTs on regular quartz substrates. This work realizes the versatile platform of PLTs with less harmful materials offering more sustainable use in future.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number2310674
Number of pages9
JournalAdvanced materials
Volume36 (2024)
Issue number26
Publication statusPublished - 19 Apr 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Mendeley 6807cef4-2ee5-3ab1-a56d-f1bddc8edeff
ORCID /0000-0001-9506-6077/work/160953486
ORCID /0000-0002-4112-6991/work/160953552
ORCID /0000-0001-5081-2558/work/160953561

Keywords

Keywords

  • biodegradable, information storage, organic semiconductors, polymers, programmable luminescent tags, room-temperature phosphorescence