The effects of annealing on the morphology and color tunability of the luminescent polymer layer of polymer light-emitting diodes

CHED 828

Alison L. Crotti, alison.crotti@email.stvincent.edu, St. Vincent College, 300 Fraser Purchase Rd., Box 1100, Latrobe, PA 15650 and Steven J Gravelle, sgravelle@stvincent.edu, Department of Chemistry, Saint Vincent College, 300 Fraser Purchase Road, Latrobe, PA 15650.
Polymer based light-emitting diodes have constituted a large field of scientific study since their conception in the early 1990's. A number of scientists have conducted research in order to discover ways to improve the quality of the diodes. My research is focused mainly on the thermal annealing of the luminescent layer of PLEDs to determine its effect on polymer morphology as well as color emission. I have fabricated and annealed a number of diodes over a range of temperatures and have gathered SEM images, as well as fluorimeter spectra, before and after the annealing in order to visualize the differences in the polymer structure and to determine the emission color of the luminescent polymer layer, respectively. I will present results that show distinct differences and trends in both polymer morphology and color emission based on annealing temperature.
 

Undergraduate Research Poster Session: Polymer Chemistry
11:00 AM-1:00 PM, Monday, March 26, 2007 Hyatt Regency Chicago -- Riverside Center, Poster

Division of Chemical Education

The 233rd ACS National Meeting, Chicago, IL, March 25-29, 2007