University of St Andrews researchers have published new findings paving the way for sustainable temperature sensors based on organic semiconductor materials. The research could lead to sustainable sensors suitable for use in everyday technology.
Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials, commonly used in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), have rapidly gained popularity as alternative emitters to noble metal-containing phosphorescent complexes. Despite their popularity in OLED applications, their use in organic electronics has been less researched.
In the research, published in Nature Communications, University of St Andrews researchers describe an organic TADF compound useful in colorimetric temperature sensing that provides the widest spectral and temperature range compared to traditional organic temperature probes.
"Clever control of the populations of emitter molecules and aggregates is responsible for the temperature change that we have exploited in this optical temperature probe. Given its wide temperature sensitivity, especially across physiological temperatures, we foresee that such a sensor could find numerous uses, such as in rapid temperature detection on packages," said Professor Zysman-Colman.