Cited research: Nature Mater. doi:10.1038/nmat2751 (2010)

Light-emitting transistors made from organic materials could become the next generation of low-cost display technologies. The organic light-emitting transistor (OLET), made by Michele Muccini and Raffaella Capelli at the Italian National Research Agency in Bologna and their colleagues, is 100 times more efficient at converting electricity into light than the equivalent organic light-emitting diode (OLED), the latest technology for thin, lightweight displays.

The OLET consists of a luminescent matrix sandwiched between two semiconductor layers, all stacked on a substrate. The architecture of these layers decreased or prevented the loss of photons and quenching of excitons — both particles responsible for the light emission — that are common in OLEDs.