Molecular Materials with Short Radiative Lifetime for High-Speed Light-Emitting Devices

Optical interconnects transmit signals between different parts of integrated circuits using light and have lower power consumption and latency than the conventional metal interconnects. The modulation frequency of the on-chip light sources in optical interconnects determines the signal transmission speed. In principle, on-chip lasers relying on stimulated emission can have high modulation frequency but also have high fabrication complexity and energy consumption. Thus, it is desirable to use light-emitting devices that operate through spontaneous emission as the on-chip light source. However, the operation speed of these devices is limited by the radiative lifetime of the emitting materials. In this perspective, we envision that elaborately designed fluorescence molecules can give rise to materials that have radiative lifetime shorter by several orders of magnitude than conventional inorganic semiconductors through a phenomenon termed superradiance.