27/04/2020

White-emitting Protein-Metal Nanocluster Phosphors for Highly Performing Biohybrid Light-Emitting Diodes

Title: White-emitting Protein-Metal Nanocluster Phosphors for Highly Performing Biohybrid Light-Emitting Diodes

Authors:

Aires, A; Fernández-Luna, V; Fernández-Cestau, J; Costa, RD; Cortajarena, AL.

Journal: Nano Letters 2020, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00324

This work presents a simple in situ synthesis and stabilization of fluorescent gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) with different sizes using engineered protein scaffolds in water. The protein-AuNC hybrids show a dual emission (450 and 700 nm) with a record photoluminescence quantum yield of 20%. These features impelled us to apply them to biohybrid light-emitting diodes as color down-converting filters or biophosphors. Efficient white emission (x/y CIE color coordinates of 0.31/0.29) and stabilities of more than 800 h were achieved. This represents a 2 orders of magnitude enhancement compared to the prior art. Besides the outstanding performance, the protein scaffold also infers a unique anisotropic emission character that is considered as a proof-of-concept of high interest for single-point lighting and display.