Light-Emitting Polymer Nanofibers

Camposeo A. and Pisignano D., New perspectives for light-emitting polymer nanofibers, http //spie.org/newsroom/technical-articles-archive/3450-new-perspectives-for-light-emitting-polymer-nanofibers. 

Here we recall a few important physical concepts and technological issues related to the properties of stimulated emission and lasing action shown by a few classes of light-emitting polymer nanofibers. These fibers are better presented in Seetion 5.5. A complete, definitive description of the operation principles of laser materials can be found in the book by O. Svelto. Furthermore, for readers interested in more details on organic lasers, excellent specialized reviews exist in the literature. ... 

Molecular Aggregation and Orientation in Light-emitting Polymer Nanofibers... 

Different electroluminescent device architectures can be developed by means of light-emitting polymer nanofibers. In the simplest case, fibers are just deposited on a hole-injecting layer and capped by a metal cathode. For example, disordered assemblies of PFO nanowires are used within a [glass/ ITO/PEDOT PSS (70 nm)/fibers/Al] prototype structure showing a threshold... 

H-C. Chen, C-T. Wang, C-L Liu, Y-C. Liu, and W-C Chen, Full color light-emitting electrospun nanofibers prepared from PFO/MEH-PPV/PMMA ternary blends, J. Polymer Sci. B Polymer Phys., 47, 463 70 (2009). 

Both molecular and transition dipole moment orientation can be probed within the solid state samples, especially upon combining structural information with polarized absorption measurements. Small-area electron diffraction experiments are also effective since they allow the orientation of crystalline regions within polymer nanofibers to be probed. Most of these techniques are already well established from the study of polymer alignment in thin-films. Improved analysis methods, which make use of combined polarized Raman spectroscopy and UV-visible absorption data, are especially worthwhile to be mentioned as valuable tools to investigate the orientational properties of light-emitting polymer systems. We will come back in depth to optical properties of polymer nanofibers in Chapter 5. 

A lot of claims are frequently made in technical literature about the use of polymer nanofibers to confer new functionalities for smart clothing. Envisaged applications include thermal-insulation enhanced compared to conventional microfibers, integration of nanofiber-based plastic electronics or sensors, clothes finished by fluorescent features made by light-emitting polymer fibers. 

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