New glass material emits white light, could reshape LED manufacturing
Researchers have engineered a glass that produces white light through a novel heating and pressure process, with potential to reduce costs and improve efficiency in LED production. The breakthrough demonstrates how materials science can unlock unexpected optical properties in existing compound families, opening new pathways for lighting and display technologies.
Originaltitel: White‐Light Emission in Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework Glasses
ABSTRACT Some zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) represent a new family of glass formers, with hitherto unknown photonic functionalities. In this work, we report the discovery of broadband white light emission in ZIF‐62, achieved through a vitrification‐pressurization‐annealing strategy. In this strategy, visible (blue) light emission was realized after the vitrification of ZIF‐62, subsequently enhanced and broadened upon pressurization. Additionally, a sharp redshift (37 nm) of the emission peak occurred in pressurized ZIF‐62 glass as the annealing temperature exceeded a critical annealing temperature (1.07 T g ). This implies that the photoluminescence of ZIF‐62 can be precisely tailored. The photoluminescence quantum yield of ZIF‐62 glass reached 12.2% after annealing at 1.13 T g for 30 min. The origin of the observed phenomena was revealed by conducting structural analyses. Based on the annealed ZIF‐62 glass with the best photoluminescent performance, a white light‐emitting diode (LED) was fabricated, which exhibited a luminous efficacy of 4.2 lm/W and a high operational stability, i.e., retaining 36.8% of the efficacy after 72 h of operation. This work demonstrated the feasibility of the development of one‐component white LEDs by utilizing the annealed ZIF‐62 glass.