A new and reliable way of making fluorescent solids has led to the creation of the brightest-ever class of fluorescent materials. The 3D-printable materials could one day help solar panels harvest more energy from the sun.

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Some 100,000 different dyes are able to fluoresce, helped because individual molecules in solution are physically distant from each other, says Amar Flood at Indiana University. “But in solids, the particles are closer together and so interfere with each other, which stops them behaving as individuals.”

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Flood says this means materials made using fluorescent dyes, such as fibres used in textiles, aren’t as fluorescent as the starting solution, a problem that chemists have recognised for 150 years. His team has found a way around the obstacle by mixing doughnut-shaped molecules called cyanostars with the dyes. While brighter individual fluorescent materials exist, the team’s methods promise […]

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