Polymer processing shows the light

By chemically attaching a difficult-to-process solid-state fluorescent material to a universal polymer backbone, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have built what may be a foundation for a new generation of opto-electronic display devices based on inexpensive organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

Until now, the aluminium tris (8-hydroxyquinoline) material - which is used as the emission and electron transport layer in organic light-emitting diodes - had to be deposited under high vacuum conditions, which requires costly equipment.

Attaching it to a polymer backbone allows the material to be applied using solution processes - simple spin-coating methods already widely used for applying thin films of materials.

Beyond the implications for less costly and more flexible flat panel displays and similar devices, the technique demonstrates that small molecules with interesting properties can be self-assembled onto standard polymer backbones.

Using this 'Lego-like' approach could have applications to other materials that are easier to process in polymeric form.