In the present era, organic electronics has a wide range of applications from solar technologies to the medical devices. So, there is a continuously growing field in the technology sector that’s- Organic Electronics!
This concept is meant for blending up the organic materials with advancing technologies in accordance with achieving increased capabilities and unique properties.
A recent publication was made by an international research team from Princeton University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Humboldt University in Berlin stating- a new study in the journal Nature Materials that explores organic semiconductors. The research was published on November 13th in a journal named as Nature Materials that focuses on organic semiconductors a class of materials best known for their applications in emerging technologies such as variable electronics, solar energy conversion, and excellent color displays for smartphones and televisions. In brief, the advancement should specifically help with organic light-emitting diodes that operate at high energy to emit colors such as green and blue.
The materials like organic semiconductors are being widely used at an increasing pace in futuristic technologies like the flexible electronics, advanced device displays, and even solar energy conversions. Moreover, the organic materials are not so popular for their electronic properties. For overcoming this, scientists have doped the material with various kinds of chemicals so that the properties of the materials could be improved. In this study, the researchers have discovered a new dopant that for organic semiconductors that helps in adding electrons to the carbon-based materials that also helps in increasing its conductivity over a million times.
This newly discovered dopant is made up of ruthenium-containing molecules that the researchers were able to activate using some ultraviolet light. The amazement behind researcher’s experience was about, as soon as they have activated the dopant, it stayed activated even after the ultraviolet lights were turned off and later becoming “kinetically trapped.”
THE ADVANCED SEMICONDUCTORS
This fascinating new dopant is not only unusually stable, but it can also work in organic semiconductors that are either in a solid state or a solution state. Xin Lin, a doctoral student and a member of the Princeton research team, stated in an interview for a press release that- “Organic semiconductors are ideal materials for the fabrication of mechanically flexible devices with energy-saving low-temperature processes.” “One of their major difficulties has been their comparatively low electrical conductivity, which leads to faulty devices with a shorter operating span of time that is the major requirement for commercial uses. We are working to improve the electrical properties of organic semiconductors to make them available for more applications.”
Semiconductors, usually made of silicon are the base of modern electronics as engineers can take advantage of their unique properties for taking best controls of the electrical currents. Among many applications, semiconductor devices are used for signal amplification, computing, and switching. They are used in power-saving devices such as light-emitting diodes and some other devices that help in converting energy; for example solar cells.
The organic electronics are in huge demands within the creative and innovative industries. They have the potential of revolutionizing the medical devices that extremely improves the solar energy technologies, and much more. They are among a host of new materials that are made out of actual DNA, woven from spider silk, and sometimes even capable of self-healing.
An essential process for achieving these functionalities is a process called doping, in which the semiconductor’s chemical property is modified by adding a few chemicals or impurities. This is done by carefully choosing the type and amount of dopant. All these properties help the researchers in altering semiconductor’s electronic structure as well as their electrical behavior in a variety of ways.
Seth Marder and Steve Barlow from Georgia Tech, who led the development of the new dopant, called the ruthenium compound a “hyper-reducing dopant” stated that it is unusual, not only its combination of electron donation durability and air stability, but its ability to work with a division of organic semiconductors that have been very difficult to dope. In studies conducted at Princeton, the researchers found that the new dopant increased the conductivity of these semiconductors about a million times.
These may or may not lead us to merge with machines, as Elon Musk has claimed is necessary and states that these emerging technologies are not only helping our devices to develop but also making them more efficient and turning them into something less harmful to the environment, and something with more natural feeling with our human bodies. But in either way, new technology is blending with organic materials in ways that help in serving to benefit the humanity. Our organic electronics– devices are getting smoother, and we may soon find ourselves closer to them than we had ever before dreamed possible.