Phys.org May 16, 2024
To overcome the synthesis bottleneck in molecular discovery, an international team of researchers (Canada, USA – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, industry, UK, Japan, Poland) developed a generalizable two-step one-pot protocol for assembling pentameric organic solid-state laser (OSL) gain materials from modular precursors, spanning over 150,000 target materials. The preparation of building blocks was distributed over the available experimental resources at four geographic locations. They found a total of 21 small-molecule emitters with improved emission gain cross sections compared with state-of-the-art OSL gain materials. The resulting data was fed into the central, machine learning–based experiment planning module and distributed to robotic platforms at the different sites. Ultimately, laser-like properties of three identified materials were measured in thin films, confirming the discovery of gain materials with best-in-class amplified spontaneous emission thresholds. According to the researchers scaling a framework to flexibly including distributed human and robotic research resources can pave the way for democratizing (materials) discovery… read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Delocalizing molecular materials discovery targeting OSL emitters. Credit: Felix Strieth-Kalthoff et al.