Single-Component Biohybrid Light-Emitting Diodes Using a White-Emitting Fused Protein

This work presents a pioneering multidisciplinary approach toward enhancing biohybrid light-emitting diodes (BioHLEDs), merging synthetic biology tools, polymer chemistry, and device engineering to design a thin color down-converting coating with a single white-emitting fluorescent protein (WFP). In particular, the WFP consists of fused red-, green-, and blue-emitting FPs following the so-called protein superglue approach. This WFP shows an efficient and stable white emission originated from a Förster resonance energy transfer between FP moieties. The emission chromaticity is, in addition, easily controlled by the rigidity of the polymer matrix of the coating, reaching photoluminescence quantum yields of 26% that stand out among intrinsic white-emitting materials. The WFP single-component color down-converting packaging was applied to fabricate BioHLEDs featuring efficient neutral white emission that is stable over 400 h. This represents the most stable BioHLED reported to date. Thus, this work is a landmark for the use of synthetic biology tools to design tailored luminescent biomaterials for lighting applications.