Investigation of photoluminescence degradation and OLED device of a new polysilane

Polysilanes are sigma conjugated polymers with a Si back bone which shows emission in ultraviolet (UV). Earlier, we had fabricated polysilane devices based on poly[bis(p-butylphenyl)silane] (PBPS), poly(n- octylphenylsilane) (PS-8) and several other polysilanes [1]. Among these, PBPS and PS-8 devices had a low turn-on voltage. In this work, we have compared photoluminescence degradation and device characteristics of PBPS, PS-8 and a new polysilane, poly[(p-n-butylphenyl)(n-octyl)silane] (P-8). These three polysilanes allow us to systematically investigate the effect of the side groups attached to the Si chain. We find that the presence of alkyl chain drives the emission to deeper UV, whereas phenyl group yields a greater stability.