Letter abstract
Nature Materials 7, 376 - 380 (2008)
Published online: 13 April 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2165
Subject Categories: Polymers | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Design synthesis and processing
Simultaneous optimization of charge-carrier mobility and optical gain in semiconducting polymer films
Boon Kar Yap, Ruidong Xia, Mariano Campoy-Quiles, Paul N. Stavrinou & Donal D. C. Bradley
The combination of efficient light emission and high charge-carrier mobility has thus far proved elusive for polymer semiconductors, with high mobility typically achieved by cofacial 
-electron system to -electron system interactions that quench exciton luminescence1, 2. We report a new strategy, comprising the introduction of a limited number of more effective hopping sites between otherwise relatively isolated, and thus highly luminescent, polyfluorene chains. Our approach results in polymer films with large mobility (
3–6
10-
2 cm2 V-
1 s-
1) and simultaneously excellent light-emission characteristics. These materials are expected to be of interest for light-emitting transistors3, light-emitting diode sources for optical communications4 and may offer renewed hope for electrically pumped laser action2, 5, 6. In the last context, optically pumped distributed feedback lasers comprising one-dimensional etched silica grating structures coated with polymer have state-of-the-art excitation thresholds (as low as 30 W cm-
2 (0.1 nJ per pulse or 0.3 
J cm-
2) for 10 Hz, 12 ns, 390 nm excitation) and slope efficiencies (up to 11%
).
- The Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Correspondence to: Ruidong Xia Also at: College of Physics, Science and Technology Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei 071002, China
Correspondence to: Donal D. C. Bradley e-mail: D.Bradley@imperial.ac.uk
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