On May 13, the research team led by Prof. Wu Hongbin at SCUT reported their research paper titled 'Ultrahigh-radiance Near-infrared Organic Light-emitting Diodes' in Nature Photonics. They proposed a novel strategy to suppress efficiency roll-off in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), through which the quenching of singlet excitons by long-lived triplet excitons was significantly alleviated, thus enhancing the critical current density to approximately 100 A/cm² under DC driving and 10 kA/cm² under pulsed driving, ultimately achieving ultrahigh-brightness near-infrared electroluminescence with a radiance 147 times greater than that of terrestrial solar irradiance.

Due to its low optical scattering and deep tissue penetration characteristics in living organisms, the near-infrared spectrum (700-1700 nm) holds broad application prospects in optical coherence tomography, biomedical diagnostic such as blood oxygen/glucose monitoring, and biometric identification including facial/iris/fingerprint recognition. Therefore, the results pave the way for further  r non-invasive, wearable and implantable electronic devices such as pulse oximeters, continuous glucose monitors, photobiomodulation therapy systems, and optical coherence tomography imaging platforms.

(a)Picture of a large-area flood light source with a size of 10 cm^² (3.2 cm × 3.2 cm)

(b)Images of subcutaneous blood vessels of human fingers under the transmitted illumination of largearea NIR OLEDs

(c)A flexible 1.5×1.5 cm² area light source fabricated on bendable substrates

(d)Proof-of-concept demonstration of wearable OLED patches

(e)Demonstration for indoor active night-vision illumination applications