Accelerated luminophore discovery through combinatorial synthesis.

A method for accelerating the discovery of ionic luminophores using combinatorial techniques is reported. The photophysical properties of the resulting transition-metal-based chromophores were compared against a series of analogous, traditionally prepared species. The strong overlap between these two sets confirms the identity of the parallel synthesis products and supports the truthfulness of the combinatorial results. Further support for the combinatorial method comes from the adherence of these complexes to the energy gap law. The relationship between the structure of a complex and its photophysical properties was also considered, and static DFT calculations were used to assess whether it is feasible to predict the luminescent behavior of novel materials.