

I think the most exciting part of this grant is that we're going to learn a lot in a very short time. In contrast, SMILES possess a remarkable combination of unprecedented features and versatility - and there's a lot more territory to explore. "Most materials discoveries have narrow commercial potential. "SMILES are truly unique - not just in terms of the science but also because these materials are a 'platform' technology," Benson said. as a researcher in Flood's lab at IU, is the CEO of Halophore. Halophore has active collaborations with partners in academia and industry.Ĭhris Benson, who earned a Ph.D.

The findings will also immediately benefit Hoosier industry through Halophore, a downtown Indianapolis-based company established in 2020 to explore the commercial applications of SMILES technology. The work conducted under the award will combine experimental chemistry, computational chemistry and data science research led by Flood, Raghavachari and Pamidighantam, respectively. "There's never been anything quite like them, so this grant will help us understand more about their properties, as well as how they might be used to improve existing technologies or advance new ones." "SMILES are a foundational material - a totally new material," Flood said.

SMILES have an unprecedented brightness that does not dim or change color during the production process - a common problem in the manufacture of brightly colored solids. A federal grant program created to spur the United States' global competitiveness by speeding the manufacture of high-tech materials has awarded $1.8 million to Indiana University researchers who discovered the world's brightest-known fluorescent solid materials.Īmar Flood, Krishnan Raghavachari and Sudhakar Pamidighantam of IU Bloomington will receive funds from the National Science Foundation's Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future program, or DMREF, to advance research on SMILES.Īlso known as small-molecule, ionic isolation lattices, SMILES are an innovative new material invented at IU with potential to advance technologies such as solar panels, solid state lasers, medical imaging devices and 3D displays. view moreĬredit: James Brosher, Indiana UniversityīLOOMINGTON, Ind. Image: 3D printed SMILES materials containing fluorescent dyes emit a luminescent glow under ultraviolet light.
