FINELUMEN

Cavity-confined luminophores for Advanced Photonic Materials: A training action for young researchers

Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (ITN)
FP7-PEOPLE-2007-1-1-ITN

Project start date: October 1, 2008
Duration: four years

The aim of the FINELUMEN Initial Training Network is to offer a unique educational opportunity to young scientists in the early stage of their career for mastering molecular recognition and self-assembly and build, in a controllable fashion, nanostructured luminescent materials with tailored properties, in which a luminophoric unit is encapsulated within yet unexplored cavities. The latter will be of two different types: carbon nanotubes and coordination cages. This approach turns out to be of great potential for the construction of emitting materials for several application, because it permits (i) to choose the emission color for a targeted goal and (ii) to tailor the external container for placement in a particular environment as a function of its chemical functionalization, which is capable of imparting defined features such as physical robustness, charge conductivity, optical transparency, water solubilisation, etc. The top priority of the scientific part of the FINELUMEN endeavor will be thus to develop the knowledge for manufacturing unprecedented cavity-confined molecular materials which will be stable under different functioning conditions and versatile for several technological applications, such as sensing, telecommunications, organic-light emitting diodes to mention a few.

First main objective: Multidisciplinary research training and transfer of knowledge.
The network consists of academic and industrial groups working at the forefront of science in chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, engineering and device manufacturing. A wide spectrum of techniques will be applied, including techniques for organic synthesis, chemical characterization, theoretical modeling, surface functionalization, luminescence spectroscopy, optical, vibrational (IR and Raman) spectroscopy, scanning probe and transmission electron microscopies (SPM, TEM), electrophoresis, voltammetry, transient absorption, multiphoton excitation. Due to this manifold of techniques, the early-stage researchers will benefit a very broad and multidisciplinary training that will be pivotal for their future scientific careers enabling them, at the same time, to focus on a specific advanced research topic.

Second main objective: Preparation of novel versatile luminescent materials with a broad range of potential applications. The aim of the FINELUMEN research programme is to gain basic understanding and develop rationale protocols for the controlled fabrication of unprecedented luminescent materials in which organic (e.g. conjugated oligomers, dyes) and inorganic (e.g. rare earth complexes) emitters are supramolecularly encapsulated within nano-containers, and thus “electronically insulated”. This will be driven by molecular modeling and synthetic design and accomplished by gaining a full control over the physico-chemical properties of complex architectures made of different functional guests (luminophores) and hosts (container: carbon nanotubes and coordination cages). The ultimate aim is to create a library of versatile luminescent modules emitting throughout the VIS-NIR region for producing superior functional materials for nanotechnological and device applications. The emission color tunability is driven by the emitting guest, while the versatility in the final application is controlled via tailored chemical functionalization of the host.