Twenty-one new organic solid-state laser (OSL) materials have been discovered, a big step forward in materials science made possible by the creative use of self-driving labs (SDLs).
This groundbreaking project, led by the Acceleration Consortium at the University of Toronto, has cut the time it takes to find new OSL materials from years to just a few months.
(Photo: WikimediaCommons/D-Kuru)
Self-Driving Labs are Changing the Way We Find Materials
OSLs have a lot of potential because they are flexible, can change colors, and work very well. However, their progress has been slowed down by the need for many tests. Over 150,000 tests were needed to find materials that would work.
Over the last few decades, only 10 to 20 new OSL materials have been tested. This was supposed to change, so researchers from the Acceleration Consortium used SDL technology, which combines AI and robotic synthesis to speed up the finding process.
SDLs are usually limited to a single physical lab, making them less valuable. A study in the journal Science, "Delocalized Asynchronous Closed-Loop Discovery of Organic Laser Emitters," details the new method and shows a model for distributed experiments.
This model assigned different tasks to six study teams in five global labs in Toronto, Vancouver, Glasgow, Illinois, and Fukuoka. The project used each site's unique skills and resources to combine and test more than 1,000 possible OSL materials. In just a few months, it found 21 top-performing OSL gain candidates.
With the spread experimentation method, each lab could help the project with the skills it was best at. This decentralized workflow, handled by a cloud-based platform, made things more efficient and accessible, making it possible to repeat what experiments showed quickly. The process of finding became more open to everyone, which sped up the creation of next-generation laser technology.
What's Next for Decentralized Research
The director of the Acceleration Consortium, Dr. Alán Aspuru-Guzik, discussed the importance of the closed-loop method in the paper. This method lets researchers examine the process in great detail, from the molecular level to devices. This speeds up the discovery of materials just starting to be used in the real world.
He also said the team's experiment included many things, from molecules to devices. The last devices were made in Japan, enlarged in Vancouver, and then sent back to Japan to be studied further.
The discovery of these new OSL materials has made a big step forward in molecular optoelectronics. It sets a standard for future delocalized discovery efforts in materials science and shows how SDLs could completely change the field.
The project overcame the problems that usually arise with such complicated processes by combining synthesis, property characterization, formulation, and system-level testing at several sites.
The success of this model for distributed experiments shows how important it is to have a central hub that can be reached from anywhere in the world for data transfer, designing experiments with AI in mind, and managing procedures. This way of doing things has been very helpful in setting up global design-make-test-analyze loops for materials finding that would not work in a single lab.
The researchers think that expanding this framework to include both human and robotic study resources that are spread out can make it easier for more people to find new materials. These findings could lead to more big steps forward in many areas, making OSL devices and other things work better.
The Acceleration Consortium's creative use of SDLs and distributed testing has sped up the search for new OSL materials and set a new standard for working together on research projects. This approach could open up new areas of materials science and speed up the creation of advanced products that will help everyone.
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