From Quantum Mechanical Restrictions to Everyday Applications: Programmable Tags using Organic Phosphorescence

Organic phosphorescence at room temperature is a strongly growing field of research. Together with fluorescence, it describes the radiative transitions of organic molecules after excitation with light of appropriate wavelength. While fluorescence is a process on the nanosecond timescale, organic phosphorescence is known to show afterglow emission in the lifetime range of microseconds to seconds. These long timescales result from quantum-mechanical restrictions in the transition processes underlying the phosphorescence. Namely, the involved electrons of the molecule have to undergo a spin flip, which is forbidden in zeroth-order approximation due to the necessity of conservation of angular momentum. In consequence, this emission feature of organic materials in general is obstructed at ambient temperature by dominating nonradiative deactivation channels. However, by careful design of the system, efficient phosphorescence at room temperature can be realized. In recent years, the number of publications introducing new organic phosphorescent emitters has continuously increased. However, to that date, the high quantity of described materials is not matched by an adequate amount of proposed applications. In fact, most publications present the synthesis of the substances as well as the morphology of the system, but only briefly address possible subsequent developing steps. In this thesis, as a first step, recent developments in that area are compiled to a broad overview, which includes proposed applications like sensing and optical data storage. Beyond that, a newly detected photophysical effect is introduced and evaluated, which enables the reversible activation of phosphorescence in a thin and transparent film. Since for many emitter materials the presence of adjacent molecular oxygen leads to a complete vanishing of phosphorescence, this emission can locally be tuned by manipulating the respective oxygen concentration. It is shown that a very elegant, non-contact way of achieving that is by using light of different wavelengths only. In detail, radiation in the near UV or blue regime can induce a chemical reaction of the oxygen and its environment, leading to an oxygen depletion at the illuminated regions. By covering the system with suitable barrier layers, no fresh oxygen can refill the system and phosphorescence becomes visible at the respective areas. By that, any luminescent image can be programmed into the transparent layers and be read out on demand. In addition, subsequent illumination with infrared radiation leads to a rise of the overall temperature, which consequently increases the permeability of the oxygen barrier. Therefore, the system is refilled with molecular oxygen and the pattern is erased. In a next step, new images can be written into the device. When not read out by illumination with appropriate light, the system is completely transparent and does not reveal the programmed information. That enables the fabrication of programmable luminescent tags, which allow multiple cycles of writing, reading and erasing, and thus may be used for temporary labeling in logistics or for invisible document security. Prototypes of the mentioned applications are manufactured and tested in this work, revealing the feasibility of their realization. The overall procedure as well as the device structure are part of patent applications. As a further part of the thesis, the characterization of multiple organic emitters and additives reveals that the effect of switchable phosphorescence is not limited to a particular material combination, but is rather a very general behavior. In consequence, device features like emission color, pattern contrast, or wavelength sensitivity are successfully optimized using suitable available organic systems. In order to facilitate a targeted development of new phosphorescent emitters in the future, the decisive demands on the materials to enable programmable tags are defined. Conclusively, more application pathways are depicted, of which one already successfully gained funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany. In this follow-up study, the suitability of the discovered results on sensing of UV radiation will be examined. With two more submitted proposals building up on the presented developments, the results of this thesis open up a broad range of further work both from the scientific and the engineering point of view.

Level thesis:degree_level

thesis.doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher

Technische Universität Dresden

Year

2020

Author dc:creator

• Gmelch, Max

Contributors dc:contributor

• Reineke, Sebastian
• Korn, Tobias

• Organische Materialien
• Phosphoreszenz
• Programmierbare Etiketten
• RTP
• PLTs
• Organic Materials
• Phosphorescence
• Programmable Tags