Chemistry Research Projects Awarded Funding Under Innovation and Technology Commission's RAISe+ Scheme

OLED displays have been applied in smartphones, televisions, smartwatches, and VR headsets. However, the OLED industry faces three major challenges: (i) to achieve high efficiency blue and near-infrared (NIR) OLEDs, (ii) to reduce the cost of OLED emitters, (iii) to develop wearable biomedical devices incorporating flexible OLED displays. The project primarily focuses on realising proprietary blue, green, red and NIR non-iridium OLED emitters based on phosphorescent platinum or metal-TADF (including gold, copper and palladium) complexes with high operationally stability and efficiency in OLED devices. This can reduce material costs and reliance on emitters based on the rare-earth metal iridium, thereby promoting the sustainable development of OLED technology. Establishing a patent portfolio of proprietary OLED emitters and devices with practical performance will enhance the competitiveness of the national OLED industry. Additionally, the research team is developing wearable display devices for phototherapeutic or biomedical applications, utilising our practically stable and efficient NIR-emitting or colour-tunable OLED devices.
 

In the RAISe+ program, the project team ahs established strong partnerships with national and global companies. The team consists of a group of scientists and engineers with industrial backgrounds, dedicated to optimising OLED emitters and device architectures to improve device efficiency and operational lifespan, paving the way for commercialisation. 

Based on the Nation’s No. 1 world ranking in gold mine production, the project team will fully exploit the country's national resources on the much higher-abundance gold and the research team's competitive edge in original discovery of gold(III) luminescent materials for OLED applications. The project aims to unleash the full potentials of the research team's proprietary gold(III) luminescent materials and expand their applications into healthcare industry. The project has gathered under it a world-class interdisciplinary research team with complementary expertise in chemistry, materials science, photophysics, computation, organic optoelectronics/electronics, device physics and engineering, medicine and clinical science to address the grand challenges. Through the synergistic team efforts, the present project will generate a novel series of high-performance gold(III) luminescent materials of international originality and possessing Hong Kong-owned intellectual property rights not only for OLED applications, but also to develop handy, compact and affordable non-invasive healthcare devices. With the support of ITC and industrial partners, together with support from an aerospace industrial partner to conduct product trials at the Space Stations, the project team will contribute to finding innovative applications in the healthcare industry and making a contribution to the development of our National Space Science and Technology Mission.