Scientists and students of NSU presented their research at the International School-Conference on Organic Electronics

A delegation of scientists, students, and graduate students from the Laboratory of Low-Carbon Chemical Technologies (ORËL Research Lab) of Novosibirsk State University presented reports at the 12th International School-Conference on Organic Electronics — IFSOE-2026, held in Moscow. This is an annual event that brings together participants from all over Russia and abroad to discuss pressing issues in organic electronics — one of the most promising and young fields of modern science at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and technology. This year, a report was presented by a graduate student of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU, a junior researcher at ORËL Research Lab Darya Tarakanovskaya He was awarded first prize in the category “Best Oral Presentation.” It is devoted to the molecular design of narrow-band emitter molecules for OLEDs using artificial intelligence tools.

Organic electronics at NSU today is being developed by the young team of ORËL Research Lab in several directions at once — from creating new light-emitting molecules and developing more efficient OLEDs to organic transistors, sensors, and neuromorphic devices. Despite the differences between these technologies, they share one common goal — to learn how to purposefully control the properties of organic materials at the molecular level and turn these properties into working devices. It is precisely at the intersection of chemistry, physics, computer modeling, and engineering that new solutions are born, which in the future may find applications in a wide range of electronic fields.

Employees of ORËL Research Lab spoke about the research they conduct in the mysterious field of organic electronics.

Single-layer OLED

Head of the ORËL Research Lab laboratory, Candidate of Chemical Sciences Evgeny Mostovich:

— One of the research directions of our laboratory is related to the creation of single-layer OLEDs. In the most common OLED architecture, it consists of several very thin layers of organic materials, each with a thickness of only a few tens of nanometers. Each layer performs its particular function, like performers in an orchestra, where each plays their part. Some facilitate hole transport, others electron transport, some block charge carriers, or provide emission. Ultimately, all these processes must converge in one special area—the “holy of holies”—the recombination zone. It is here that all the magic of OLED happens: the electron and hole meet and form an exciton—a molecule’s excited electron state. Returning to the ground state, the exciton can lead to photon emission, that is, visible light. But making an efficient OLED is a very challenging task, requiring coordination of the operation of many layers, adjustment, and optimization. Therefore, a natural question arises: is it possible to combine several functions into one material and thereby simplify the OLED design?This is precisely where the idea of a single-layer OLED arises — a device in which charge transport and the recombination zone are implemented within a single organic layer.

At first glance, the task seems contradictory. Organic materials often specialize in transporting primarily one type of carrier, either electrons or holes. And now, a single molecular system is required to efficiently transport both types of charges simultaneously, facilitate their recombination, and simultaneously emit light efficiently. These are precisely the materials we are looking for. One of the promising molecular systems was designed jointly with our colleagues and literally assembled “brick by brick,” like a molecular LEGO constructor. The quantum yield of photoluminescence for our molecular system exceeded 60%, and the OLED prototype “lit up” at a voltage just over 2 V. But perhaps the most interesting aspect lies not only in the molecule itself. The approach we used for molecular design turned out to be quite versatile and can be applied to other classes of organic materials. This opens up the possibility to purposefully alter the molecular structure and ultimately create more efficient OLEDs with a simple single-layer architecture.

AI in modeling new materials

Postgraduate student at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, NSU, junior researcher at ORËL Research Lab Darya Tarakanovskaya:

— The search for new materials for OLED technologies is one of the current challenges in modern organic electronics. A key factor for successful research in this highly competitive field is the speed of searching and modeling new materials, especially for next-generation OLEDs based on multi-resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF). Such materials potentially allow the use of almost all triplet excited states formed in the OLED for light generation while simultaneously providing a narrow emission band. Using quantum-chemical methods, we studied series of MR-TADF emitters based on the π-annulated B,N-containing DABNA core and established how the molecular structure and bridging heteroatoms affect the singlet-triplet energy gap, spin-orbit interaction, and oscillator strength—parameters that largely determine the efficiency of reverse intercombination conversion and subsequent emission. However, screening a large number of molecular structures using classical quantum chemistry methods requires significant computational resources.Therefore, we developed an accelerated search tool based on a graph convolutional neural network capable of predicting key energy characteristics of molecules with an MAE accuracy of less than 0.10 eV. Furthermore, we advanced this approach by combining machine learning with the analysis of correlations between electron-topological descriptors and experimental molecular properties. This allowed us to move from a simple enumeration of a large number of structures to a more targeted molecular design of highly efficient narrowband OLED materials. Importantly, this approach significantly reduces the computational resources and time required for searching and modeling new molecules, enabling faster progression from idea and computer modeling to actual synthesis and experimental device.

Light-emitting molecules

Postgraduate student at NSU, laboratory assistant at ORËL Research Lab Yuri Kuzmin:

— As is known, OLEDs suffer not only from insufficient efficiency but also from insufficient color purity. This is related to the peculiarities of our perception of chromaticity and is largely determined by the width of the emission spectrum. The narrower the spectral line, the purer and more saturated the color is perceived. To solve the first problem, one of the most promising approaches is the use of molecules-emitters with thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). However, most such molecules are built on the principle of separated donor-acceptor systems. Despite their high efficiency in converting excited states into light, these molecules often exhibit excessive structural flexibility, which leads to a broad emission spectrum. To address this issue, an approach called multi-resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR-TADF) was proposed. In this case, the donor and acceptor centers are formed not by separate functional groups but by atoms inside a single rigid aromatic framework. For example, complementary atoms of boron and nitrogen, or a combination of a carbonyl fragment and nitrogen atoms can play such a role.All these centers are combined into a rigid and nearly flat molecular system. Such a molecular structure allows significantly reducing the influence of structural vibrations on the emission process and, consequently, substantially narrowing the spectral line while maintaining a high quantum yield of photoluminescence and good chemical and thermal stability.

We ourselves are engaged in the search and development of such molecules. It turned out that introducing a sulfur atom into one of the molecular systems we studied leads to a sharp improvement in a whole set of TADF characteristics. At the same time, the spectral line width decreases from about 70 to 30 nm, meaning the emission becomes significantly narrower and purer in color. We hope that using such compounds will further enable the creation of highly efficient OLEDs with purer emission colors, which can be used in a wide range of everyday electronic devices.

Molecular Design

Student of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at NSU, lab assistant at ORËL Research Lab Roman Elovsky:

— Finding a stable blue emitter molecule is one of the main challenges of modern OLED technology. The issue is that blue color carries higher energy, and high-energy excited states can increase the likelihood of unwanted photochemical processes and degradation of organic materials. That is why stable blue emitter molecules remain one of the most difficult tasks for OLED developers. One approach to effectively utilizing triplet states is the mechanism of triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA). Here, two triplet excited states interact with each other, and their energy can be converted into a single higher-energy singlet state, which then can emit light. This approach allows a new way to manage energy conversion within an organic emitter and opens additional opportunities for creating efficient blue OLEDs.

In my work, I use quantum-chemical tools for the molecular design of such compounds, select the most promising structures, plan their synthesis, and then obtain molecular systems with specified properties. This is a large synthetic undertaking, and a particularly important stage is purification, which sometimes takes more time than the synthesis itself. Only after that does the study of the properties of the obtained molecules begin. And this is perhaps one of the most beautiful parts of the work. After all the calculations, synthesis, and purification, you finally see the substance you just created with your own hands glowing. And you understand that this molecule could potentially become part of the technology we see every day on the screen of a smartphone or gadget. For me, it is precisely this combination of fundamental chemistry, quantum-chemical modeling, and the opportunity to see the direct result of one’s work that makes researching such materials particularly interesting.

Neuromorphic devices

Junior Research Fellow at ORËL Research Lab Alena Demyanenko:

— However, organic electronics is not only OLED. It also includes organic solar cells, transistors, sensors, and other devices. One of the youngest and rapidly developing fields is organic neuromorphic technology, which focuses on creating neuromorphic, i.e., neuron-like, devices based on organic semiconductors. One of the promising types of such devices is organic electrochemical gate field-effect transistors (EGOFETs). They are characterized by high sensitivity to electrical signals and the ability to operate at low voltages — less than 1 V. The EGOFET devices we developed, based on the organic semiconductor P3HT and a biocompatible ionic gel electrolyte based on ionic liquids, are capable of reproducing various functions of the biological synapse. In particular, we have successfully demonstrated with our EGOFET the excitatory postsynaptic current, short-term potentiation, and paired-pulse facilitation — that is, all the effects underlying signal transmission and processing in biological nervous systems.Further development and optimization of such devices, and prospectively their scaling, will enable the creation of new efficient systems capable of reproducing certain operational principles of biological neural networks. Unlike conventional electronics, such devices can potentially be used not only for signal transmission but also simultaneously for its memorization and processing.