It never ceases to impress that many of the things we take for granted today were the result of accidents or unintended properties discovered when trying to create something else. Such is the case with a breakthrough by researchers at the University of Michigan that has produced a material that may be able to one day reduce the cost of OLED screens and lighting.

Researcher Jinsang Kim and other colleagues developed a new class of organic material that shines with phosphorescence that has only been seen previously in non-organic compounds. Kim and the other researchers developed a material that needs no metal, unlike the current materials, and can radiate light in different colors. The new material needs no precious metals like current non-organic OLEDs require, thereby reducing costs.

The new material is able to radiate white in visible light; and in ultraviolet light, they radiate blue, green, yellow, and orange. The composition of the material can be changed to emit different colors as well making the new material ideally suited to color tunable lighting.

The unique phosphorescent properties of the material was discovered when a former doctoral student Kangwon Lee was researching a biosensor. The phosphors he discovered have use in the biosensor application and were then studied and tweaked for use as pure organic metal-free luminous materials. The new luminous material may one day be used to create larger and cheaper OLED panels for electronics in addition to the solid state lighting applications.

"Purely organic materials haven't been able to generate meaningful phosphorescence emissions. We believe this is the first example of an organic that can compete with an organometallic in terms of brightness and color tuning capability," said Kim, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, chemical engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and biomedical engineering.

The new phosphors have a quantum yield of 55%. Science Daily reports that quantum yield is a measure of a materials efficiency and brightness in as far as it can dissipate energy as light rather than heat as it returns to ground state from an excited state. The phosphors created by Kim create light from molecules of oxygen and carbon known as "aromatic carbonyls."

The aromatic carbonyls that Kim created are unique in that they form tight halogen bonds with halogens in the crystal to pack molecules tightly. That tight packing of the molecules suppresses vibration and heat energy losses as the electrons return to ground state.