Artificial light, once a luxury, has become central to modern life, with its evolution spanning from fire to LEDs. Now, researchers have developed a new class of efficient light-emitting materials as promising candidates to be applied to lighten the darkness. They demonstrated easily accessible aluminum-based organometallic complexes that have the potential to be applied in optoelectronic devices.

The research team is from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw and Warsaw University of Technology led by Prof. Janusz Lewiński in collaboration with Prof. Andrew E. H. Wheatley from Cambridge University. The paper is published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Growing demand for artificial light spurred the development of energy-efficient solutions like fluorescent lamps and, later, light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Once production costs dropped, LEDs became ubiquitous in homes and portable devices.