Opto-Electronic Materials

Dear Colleagues,

The field of organic electronics and photonics has now reached a mature stage. Applications, such as light-emitting diodes for displays and white lighting, field effect transistors for electronic circuitry, photovoltaic cells for light conversion into electricity, as well as photodetectors and sensors, have been demonstrated. The tremendous progress that we have witnessed over recent years concerning the quantum efficiency of some of these devices has been driven by the development of new materials. The versatility of organic synthesis in producing tailored, conjugated molecules and polymers, combined with the possibility of preparing thin, light, and flexible films from the liquid or gas phase, has largely contributed to this success.

However, a number of challenges are still ahead of us. Some challenges are fundamental (e.g., boosting charge generation quantum efficiency in organic solar cells or improving the brightness/power consumption tradeoff in organic light-emitting diodes). Other problems are practical (mainly, these concern long-term stability under operating conditions). These challenges call for multidisciplinary research efforts, where the complementary expertise provided by chemists, physicists, engineers, and material scientists is key. Incremental improvements are welcome, but we should also seek breakthroughs fed by new material and device design strategies.

Along these lines, we welcome submissions of original research articles concerning theoretical and experimental physics, as well as synthetic, computational, and physical chemistry and engineering. These articles should aim at: (i) improving our understanding of how these devices work; and (ii) refining the existing rules or identifying new ones for the design of the next generation of organic conjugated materials for opto-electronic applications.

Dr. David Beljonne
Guest Editor

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