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Patterning of light-emitting conjugated polymer nanofibres

Nature Nanotechnology volume 3, pages 614–619 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Organic materials have revolutionized optoelectronics by their processability, flexibility and low cost, with application to light-emitting devices for full-colour screens1, solar cells2 and lasers3,4. Some low-dimensional organic semiconductor structures exhibit properties resembling those of inorganics, such as polarized emission5 and enhanced electroluminescence6. One-dimensional metallic, III–V and II–VI nanostructures have also been the subject of intense investigation7,8 as building blocks for nanoelectronics and photonics. Given that one-dimensional polymer nanostructures, such as polymer nanofibres, are compatible with sub-micrometre patterning capability9 and electromagnetic confinement within subwavelength volumes8, they can offer the benefits of organic light sources to nanoscale optics. Here we report on the optical properties of fully conjugated, electrospun polymer nanofibres. We assess their waveguiding performance and emission tuneability in the whole visible range. We demonstrate the enhancement of the fibre forward emission through imprinting periodic nanostructures using room-temperature nanoimprint lithography, and investigate the angular dispersion of differently polarized emitted light.

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Figure 1: Characterization and optical properties of as-produced conjugated polymer nanofibres.
Figure 2: Nanofibre waveguiding properties.
Figure 3: Nanopatterning of single light-emitting polymer nanofibres.
Figure 4: Emission properties of nanopatterned fibres.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank A. Cometta and M. Brich (Zeiss) for the confocal microscopy measurements. F.D.B. acknowledges helpful discussions with F. Ko about the electrostatic spinning technique.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Italian Institute of Technology, Research Unit at NNL, National Nanotechnology Laboratory of INFM-CNR, via Arnesano, Lecce, I-73100, Italy

    Francesca Di Benedetto, Andrea Camposeo, Stefano Pagliara, Elisa Mele, Luana Persano, Ripalta Stabile, Roberto Cingolani & Dario Pisignano

  2. Scuola Superiore ISUFI, Università del Salento, via Arnesano, Lecce, I-73100, Italy

    Stefano Pagliara, Ripalta Stabile & Dario Pisignano

Authors
  1. Francesca Di Benedetto
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  2. Andrea Camposeo
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  3. Stefano Pagliara
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  4. Elisa Mele
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  5. Luana Persano
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  6. Ripalta Stabile
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  7. Roberto Cingolani
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  8. Dario Pisignano
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Contributions

A.C. and D.P. conceived and designed the experiments. F.D.B and S.P. performed the electrospinning experiments. L.P. performed the AFM measurements and analysed the data. R.S. performed the SEM measurements, realized the NIL masters and analysed the data. E.M. carried out the imprinting experiments. A.C. was responsible for the optical characterization. E.M., L.P., A.C., R.C. and D.P. contributed materials and analysis tools. F.D.B. and D.P. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dario Pisignano.

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Di Benedetto, F., Camposeo, A., Pagliara, S. et al. Patterning of light-emitting conjugated polymer nanofibres. Nature Nanotech 3, 614–619 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2008.232

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