Light-emitting diodes based on conjugated polymers

Conjugated polymers offer, in principle, the combination of polymer processibility together with interesting electronic properties. The feasibility of controlling materials to give structures with well-defined properties has provided an important focus for the experimental work. A decade or so since the first work on the electronic properties of these materials there are now a range of polymers which provide a range of semiconducting properties, and with band-gaps from the near IR (1.5 eV) to the UV (3 eV). Some of these polymers are now sufficiently clean to allow their use as active components in semiconductor device structures. The authors discuss the developments made in this area