Utilization of triplet excited states in organic semiconductors

Organic optoelectronics is an emerging research field, which has attracted extensive interests in the last few decades owing to its practical applications, like organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic memory devices, organic photovoltaic (OPV), sensors, and organic field-effect transistors[1, 2]. Organic semiconductors play a crucial role in this field. Compared to the traditional inorganic semiconductors, organic semiconductors open a fascinating research direction because of some unique advantages, such as flexible design, low cost, and rich optical and electronic properties. In organic optoelectronics, the excited states greatly determine the photoelectronic properties and application areas as shown in Fig. 1. Based on the electron spin in the molecule, the excited states of organic semiconductors include singlet and triplet states. As we know, the radiative transitions of singlet and triplet excited states are always accompanied by fluorescence and phosphorescence emission, respectively.