Ionic liquids (ILs) have been one of the most attractive classes of materials of the last decades. The reason behind this is their peculiar set of properties, which enable their possible application in several research fields. ILs are salts that exhibit a very low melting point, which has been arbitrarily defined to be below 100 °C. Due to their ionic nature, ILs have little to no vapor pressure and they often demonstrate good electrical conductivity and high thermal and electrochemical stability. In this work, the focus is directed toward the exploitation of ILs for the engineering of materials that can have a primary role in light-emitting or light-absorbing devices. Materials belonging to the first type are explored in Papers I-III, while the ones belonging to the second are tackled in Papers IV and V.

There has always been a struggle to find a balance between costs and the efficiency of emitting materials for application in dedicated devices. In Papers I-III, two strategies are taken into account to address this issue. Finding inspiration from ionic complexes of Mn(II), newly designed ionic materials and ILs emitting green light are proposed as an alternative to the more expensive heavy metals-based ones such as Ir(III) and Pt(II). Coming closer to an ideal compromise of cost and performance, fully organic and extremely cheap low-melting salts based on the 8-hydroxyquinoline unit were prepared. These compounds revealed efficient fluorescence in the blue region of the spectrum for such simple molecules, paving the way for the preparation of possibly inexpensive light-emitting devices.

In Paper IV, direct absorption of light is taken into consideration with photoresponsive ionic liquids, which undergo cis-trans isomerization. Due to this feature and their ionic nature, these materials could be adopted into photoswitches. Additionally, the effect of functional groups on the isomerization of the ILs and on the ability of the materials to undergo mesophase formation was studied.

One of the key components of dye-sensitized solar cells is the electrolytic mediator sandwiched between two electrodes. This has been a matter of intense study due to issues regarding its stability, which impair the device's performance. ILs can be adopted in devices to solve this issue. In Paper V, triazolium ILs allowed the manufacturing of devices with higher efficiencies and longer lifetimes than the ones realized with imidazolium relatives. These materials allowed for the stability of the ionic couple I^-/I₃^- and moisture resistance due to their non-hygroscopic nature.