When Fluorescent Proteins Meet White Light‐Emitting Diodes

Abstract

Over the last decades, fluorescent proteins (FPs) have been extensively employed for imaging and tracing in cell biology and medicine. However, their application for lighting devices like light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers has recently started. The interest of FPs is the result of their good photoluminescence features (high emission efficiency with a narrow spectrum and a high photon-flux saturation), good photostability, sustainable production by bacteria, and eco-friendly recycling. Their low stability at high temperatures as well as the need for an aqueous environment have, however, strongly limited their use in optoelectronics. This has recently been circumvented with new coating systems that are paving the way for the entrance of FPs into the LED field. In this Minireview, we summarize the first steps taken by a few groups towards the development of bio-hybrid white LEDs (Bio-HWLEDs) with a focus on using FPs as color down-converters, highlighting the state of the art and challenges associated with this emerging field.

Squaraine Dyes: Interaction with Bovine Serum Albumin to Investigate Supramolecular Adducts with Aggregation‐Induced Emission (AIE) Properties

“…[22] Moreover,B SA-dyes adducts can be of the utmost importance for the preparation of protein biophosphors for white emission, sensing and pH detection, [23] Solid-state lighting (SSL) based on Biological Materials, [24] detection and quantitationo fi ons [12,17,25] and others peciesi n blood serum or the development of bio-hybrid white LEDs (Bio-HWLEDs). [26] In this scenario, since the importance of these adducts,i n the presentp aper we show our results on at hermodynamic and kinetic study undertaken on the interaction between BSA and as eries of squaraine dyes, with different substitutions. We selected four squarained yes differing from the nature of the lateral indolenine or benzoindolenineg roup and the length of the alkyl chain (see Figure1).…”

“…It is therefore evident that there is an urgent need and challenge for the development of novel fluorescent probes to serve as a platform for a variety of applications and these adducts are very interesting since they can be used as effective bioimaging probes or as sensors, as photothermal absorber agents with improved photodestruction efficacy or for photoacoustic tomography . Moreover, BSA‐dyes adducts can be of the utmost importance for the preparation of protein biophosphors for white emission, sensing and pH detection, Solid‐state lighting (SSL) based on Biological Materials, detection and quantitation of ions and other species in blood serum or the development of bio‐hybrid white LEDs (Bio‐HWLEDs) …”

Versatile Homoleptic Naphthyl‐Acetylide Heteronuclear [Pt2M4(CC‐Np)8] (M = Ag, Cu) Phosphors for Highly Efficient White and NIR Hybrid Light‐Emitting Diodes

“…The most efficient and stable white light‐emitting diodes (WLEDs) combine a blue‐emitting GaN chip covered by rare earth color down‐converting filters based on yellow‐emitting phosphors like Y 3 Al 5 O 12 :Ce 3+ . However, the most critical drawback is the white color quality related to high correlated color temperature (CCT) and low color rendering index (CRI) values due to insufficient low‐energy light contribution . This is of utmost relevance toward designing efficient artificial illumination for a wide range of applications.…”

“…Therefore, renewed interest has emerged in OPs, leading to hybrid LEDs (HLEDs) . This involves Cd‐based quantum dots (Cd‐QDs), ionic transition metal complexes, fluorescent proteins, organic small molecules, molecular organic frameworks (MOFs), and perovskites . In general, HLEDs have achieved efficiencies up to 130 lm W −1 and a high color quality with x / y International Commission on Illumination (CIE) color coordinates of 0.30‐3/0.30‐3, CRI above 90, and easy‐to‐modulate CCT from 2700 to 6500 K .…”

“…This involves Cd‐based quantum dots (Cd‐QDs), ionic transition metal complexes, fluorescent proteins, organic small molecules, molecular organic frameworks (MOFs), and perovskites . In general, HLEDs have achieved efficiencies up to 130 lm W −1 and a high color quality with x / y International Commission on Illumination (CIE) color coordinates of 0.30‐3/0.30‐3, CRI above 90, and easy‐to‐modulate CCT from 2700 to 6500 K . The main bottleneck is still the device stability with white HLEDs featuring lifetimes ranging from seconds to less than 200 h with handful exceptions that includes coordination complexes like iridium(III) complexes (1000 h) and hybrid luminescent silica nanoparticles (>2500 h), as well as small molecules like perilenedimide (700 h) .…”