Entire colour palette of inexpensive fluorescent dyes
Polymer fluorescent inks can now also be produced in red. Credit: ETH Zurich

Novel fluorescent dyes are easy to make. There is a modular structure to the dyes. Depending on their color, they have a variety of subunits. The subunits used are either commercially available or can be made by a single reaction step.

The new approach used by scientists has resulted in a wide range of colors, including red, which was previously difficult to produce. There is a senior scientist in the group of professors. Artificial intelligence was developed by the team with scientists from RMIT University in Australia.

There are potential applications for the fluorescent inks. The method can be used to make ink that changes color. The scientists used the example of two initially red fluorescent inks, one of which turns blue after several minutes of UV illumination, while the other remains red, in their new work. The property can be used for more than one thing.

Other uses for the new fluorescent molecule are in solar power plants, or they could be combined with semiconducting molecule to make low-cost organic light-emitting diodes for displays.

Suiying Ye and her team explored a versatile platform with charge transfer dependent full-color emission. There is an article in the journal of chemistry.

Journal information: Chem