New Product Development (NPD) of applications incorporating breakthrough technologies can be beneficial for companies, but can also come with serious drawbacks. Therefore, the NPD process must be approached with great care. Rather than adopting the chaotic trajectory of the NPD process, where applications are introduced, withdrawn, and reintroduced naturally over time, business prosperity could be enhanced if companies can up-front formulate a set of possible future applications for a breakthrough technology. The most promising alternative can hereafter be chosen to be further developed in the NPD process, possibly reducing the chance of having to switch to the development of other applications (and thus circumventing the Collingridge dilemma). In this thesis, I start with defining the terms (breakthrough) technology and application. Then, I suggest a ten-step framework that is suited for formulating applications for a breakthrough technology, based on the comparison and symbiosis of five existent frameworks that are helpful in reaching the aforementioned goal. Factors that are of importance in that process are also investigated. None were discovered in scientific literature, but some suggestions are made based on the current work. The framework is applicable to breakthrough technologies of which it is non-obvious, and even unsure, what the technology can do, how it can be implemented into applications, and whom it might serve. Next to this, the breakthrough technology must still be in the innovation phase. The process itself must make use of qualitative and quantitative approaches in a balanced way, must continuously involve known sets of experts, must look into the future, and must formulate concrete applications for the emerging technology. The framework is then partially applied to the breakthrough technology of quantum dots (QDs). The technology profile and the application profile were gathered, first, based on scientific records. Then, the most frequently used keywords and the most increasingly used keywords were retrieved for both profiles. The most frequently used keywords showed that carbon dots are the most dominant area of research that is being conducted on QDs and that optics and imaging are the two major fields where QDs are being incorporated. The most increasingly used keywords confirmed the observation that QDs are in the adaptation phase, where QDs are still surrounded by substantial uncertainty. Finally, with the aid of text mining software of VantagePoint and programming software of R, two dendrograms were formed. The remaining steps of the framework were not carried out in the current thesis project. It was concluded that the ten-step framework is most likely better suited for breakthrough technologies that are more in their infancy than QDs (so, breakthrough technologies still in the innovation phase). The framework should, next to this notion of novelty, be applicable to any breakthrough technology, regardless of the field that the breakthrough technology is situated in. As long as it is non-obvious, and even unsure, what the breakthrough technology can do, how it can be incorporated into applications, and whom it might be useful for.

Light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) form a cheap and easily produced alternative to (organic) light-emitting diodes ((O)LEDs) due to their simple device structure and the ability to form an in-situ pi- n junction. Usage of quantum dots (QDs) as a luminophore in LECs is expected to result in devices with improved emission properties and stability compared to polymer-based LECs. LECs that use QDs as their only luminophore have, however, not been operated successfully without the presence of additional charge carrier injection layers and/or the inclusion of polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) as host (and light-emitting) polymer, yet. In this thesis, I show that three-layered, purely QD-based LECs can be fabricated and operated fruitfully. A crucial step to achieving this was carrying out a ligand exchange (LE) on the QDs, replacing the long aliphatic ligands that passivate the QD surface with short BF4- ions and thereby improving the conductivity of the QD film. LECs were then produced using the ligand exchanged QDs, both with and without additional charge carrier injection layers. The three resulting devices were confirmed to operate as LECs and show light emission at positive bias. The current density and electroluminescence (EL) intensity increase as the applied bias is increased for all three the LECs. The three types of LECs were compared on their electrical response and emission. Turn-on voltages and stability windows were also determined for the three types of devices. Improvement of LEC performance is suggested to be achieved by enhancing the photoluminescent quantum yield (PLQY) of the QDs, excluding side reactions that might take place in the LEC under operation or optimizing the current device structure.