Liquid Crystalline Polymers for Electroluminescence

Abstract

Organic electroluminescence is attracting strong interest for applications in lighting and displays. Polymer devices offer some advantages for low cost processing over large areas and with extended molecular architectures there is the possibility of polarised emission. This is attractive for backlighting liquid crystal displays and also for development of sources for optoelectronics. In order to achieve polarised emission there is a need to obtain highly oriented samples. Further, to allow construction of efficient electrolumiescent diodes it is necessary to achieve this orientation in thin films deposited on suitable electrode surfaces. We believe that mesophase formation is an attractive approach to achieve these dual goals and we have thus undertaken a programme of work to produce liquid crystalline polymers with the dual attributes of charge transport and light emission capability that can allow application in electroluminescence devices. This paper reports on recent progress in materials preparation, processing and device fabrication.