The brightest fluorescent material has been created, solving a problem that’s persisted in the field for more than a century. While fluorescent dyes are potential key components of materials needed for applications including efficient solar cells, medical diagnostics, and organic light emitting diodes (LEDs), electronic coupling between them in the solid state quenches their emission. Small-molecule Ionic Isolation Lattices (SMILES) provide a solution to this long-standing problem. 

SMILES perfectly transfer the optical properties of dyes to solids, are simple to make by mixing cationic dyes with anion-binding cyanostar macromolecules, work with major classes of commercial dyes, and effectively impart fluorescence to commercial polymers. SMILES materials enable predictable fluorophore crystallization to fulfill the promise of optical materials by design.