Issue 6, 2020

Polarized blue photoluminescence of mesoscopically ordered electrospun non-conjugated polyacrylonitrile nanofibers

Abstract

Conjugated polymers and oligomers that emit polarized light are used as active materials in various optoelectronic device applications, notably organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Here, we demonstrate the fabrication of electrospun polarized light-emitting fibers from a non-conjugated polymer that can be aligned by a simple heat-stretching process. Upon excitation at 340 nm, ribbons made from the nanofibers show polarized deep blue luminescence with an anisotropy of 0.37 and a quantum yield of about 31%. Furthermore, they exhibit room temperature green phosphorescence with a lifetime of about 200 ms as well as a delayed deep blue fluorescence resulting from triplet–triplet annihilation (non-coherent photon upconversion) (TTA). Wide and small angle X-ray scattering experiments show that the stretched electrospun fibers are highly aligned with nearly perfect uniaxial orientation within the fabricated ribbons. This results in a mechanically robust and flexible material, with a high specific tensile strength (534 ± 28) MPa cm3 g−1 and toughness (79 ± 7) J g−1. The combination of efficient polarized deep blue luminescence, room temperature phosphorescence, TTA, mechanical robustness and flexibility of these fibers opens up new avenues for applications of non-conjugated polymers.

Graphical abstract: Polarized blue photoluminescence of mesoscopically ordered electrospun non-conjugated polyacrylonitrile nanofibers

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
01 yan 2020
Accepted
30 mar 2020
First published
02 apr 2020

Mater. Horiz., 2020,7, 1605-1612

Polarized blue photoluminescence of mesoscopically ordered electrospun non-conjugated polyacrylonitrile nanofibers

X. Liao, F. Kahle, B. Liu, H. Bässler, X. Zhang, A. Köhler and A. Greiner, Mater. Horiz., 2020, 7, 1605 DOI: 10.1039/D0MH00002G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements