ERC Proof of Concept for Luis Hueso

CIC nanoGUNE’s Nanodevices Group receives a grant of 150,000 euros from the European Commission through the ERC Proof of Concept program, which aims to put into practice the innovative potential of the ideas generated in cutting-edge research projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The FAST TestOM project of the Nanodevices Group of nanoGUNE is one of the 133 European projects to receive backing from the European Research Council.

The Nanodevices Group of nanoGUNE, led by Ikerbasque Reserach Professor Luis Hueso, has received an ERC Proof of Concept with funding of 150,000 euros to develop the project FAST and Accurate Testing of Organic Material – FAST TestOM. The aim of these grants awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) is to enable ideas that had previously been the object of basic research to be developed and brought closer to industry.

This project has its starting point in another previous one by the name of SPINTROS, which received 1.3 million euros through the ERC by means of the Starting Grant program; in it, new materials and functions were explored to design and develop new electronic devices based on organic semiconductors.

What the group wants to do now is to develop and market a prototype to measure the potential of organic molecules for electronic applications: FAST and Accurate Testing of Organic Material – FAST TestOM. “It is a small piece of equipment which will, for example, enable OLED screen producers to easily, rapidly, and economically measure the behavior of different organic molecules when emitting light,” explained Luis Hueso, leader of the Nanodevices Group.

The screens of many mobile phones are of the OLED (organic light-emitting diode) type. Its structure is based on a light-emitting layer consisting of a film of organic components that react to electric voltage by generating and emitting light on their own. According to the researcher, “this prototype would enable us to find out more easily and economically what type of organic molecule polymer will be able to emit more light, use less power, last longer, etc., with the resulting benefit for the production chain of commercial devices”.