Georgia Institute of Technology Materials Science and Engineering

A team led by Carlos Silva Acuña and Natalie Stingelin finds a way to track and measure biexcitons: the energy behind the light-emitting qualities of organic semiconductors. 

Organic semiconductors already provide the energy behind optical technologies inside television displays, solar cells, and lighting fixtures. Their molecular carbon-based structure makes them cheaper to produce, more flexible, of lighter weight, and more environmentally friendly than silicon-based or composite semiconductors. The future in more applications is bright — if scientists can learn more about harnessing their ability to react to and produce light.

A team of Georgia Tech researchers brings us one step closer to understanding those properties. Their new study, published in Science Advances, for the first time brings tracking and measurement to organic semiconductor photoexcitations: particles put into “excited” or energized quantum states by light.

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