All-Optical Electrochemiluminescence

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) is widely employed for medical diagnosis and imaging. Despite its remarkable analytical performances, the technique remains intrinsically limited by the essential need for an external power supply and electrical wires for electrode connections. Here, we report an electrically autonomous solution leading to a paradigm change by designing a fully integrated all-optical wireless monolithic photoelectrochemical device based on a nanostructured Si photovoltaic junction modified with catalytic coatings. Under illumination with light ranging from visible to near-infrared, photogenerated holes induce the oxidation of the ECL reagents and thus the emission of visible ECL photons. The blue ECL emission is easily viewed with naked eyes and recorded with a smartphone. A new light emission scheme is thus introduced where the ECL emission energy (2.82 eV) is higher than the excitation energy (1.18 eV) via an intermediate electrochemical process. In addition, the mapping of the photoelectrochemical activity by optical microscopy reveals the minority carrier interfacial transfer mechanism at the nanoscale. This breakthrough provides an all-optical strategy for generalizing ECL without the need for electrochemical setups, electrodes, wiring constraints, and specific electrochemical knowledge. This simplest ECL configuration reported so far opens new opportunities to develop imaging and wireless bioanalytical systems such as portable point-of-care sensing devices.