Team designs molecules that efficiently generate orange-to-red light for OLED displays

Most of us spend much of our day staring at organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which convert electricity into light to produce the colorful displays on smartphones, computer monitors and televisions. Although metal-free light-emitting materials that produce all colors are in demand, it has been difficult to make ones that efficiently emit orange-to-red light. Now, researchers led by the University of Osaka have shown that such materials do not need to be held in a rigid shape to work well: flexible molecules that can change shape can also emit orange-to-red light.