Bright Side with Brannan | Open-Shell Emitters for OLEDs: A Radical Alternative?

We're excited to launch Bright Side with Brannan, a new column by Prof. Alexander Brannan of the University of Manchester. In this column, Prof. Brannan will explore the science behind OLED technology — the materials, the physics, and the open questions driving the field forward. The following article is the first in the series.

Prof. Alexander Brannan, The University of Manchester

OLED emitter materials are currently dominated by closed-shell compounds. This means their occupied molecular orbitals, including the highest occupied molecular orbital, or HOMO, are fully occupied by paired electrons in the ground state. In other words, there are no unpaired electrons.

This electronic structure underpins the conventional OLED emitter families: fluorescent, phosphorescent, and thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters. In each case, the excited states are usually described within the traditional singlet and triplet framework.

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Posted: Jun 08,2026 by Ron Mertens