Versatile Chromophores and Excited States - From Fundamentals to Molecular Materials for Optoelectronic, Photonic and Memory Functions

Abstract

Functional materials research is one of the top priority strategic areas of development in science and technology of the century. Organic and metal-organic molecules can serve as versatile building blocks for molecular-based functional materials; they can be rationally engineered and prepared, and their optical and electronic properties are tunable with a proper understanding of structure-property relationships. Development of molecular-based materials is deemed to provide impetus and offers enormous potential for materials science research and development in the forthcoming decades. There has been an immense interest in the search for versatile chromophores and excited states for efficient light harvesting and optoelectronic and photonic functions, in particular the design of metalorganic compounds with interesting luminescence properties for the applications in organic lightemitting devices (OLEDs) for solid-state lighting as well as organic and metal-organic materials with strong light-harvesting properties for the applications in solar energy harvesting and organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Recent works in our laboratory have shown that novel photofunctional materials could be assembled through the use of various organic and metal-ligand chromophoric building blocks. In this presentation, a number of metal-ligand chromophoric complexes, coordination compounds and molecules will be described. Through rational design and various strategies, these molecular materials may find potential applications and functions as photosensitizers, efficient triplet emitters for small-molecule and solution-processable organic optoelectronics, photonics, and as materials for photoresponsive molecular switches, optical memories and organic memories.