Synthesis, photophysical property, and electroluminescent applications of silicon-based alternating copolymers

Silicon-based alternating copolymers with a uniform pi-conjugated segment regulated by alkyl/aryl-substituted distyrylsilanes units were synthesized by the Heck coupling reaction to use as full color electroluminescent (EL) materials. The EL color of the resulting copolymers was tuned by controlling pi-conjugated length as well as by introducing various aromatic units into the polymer backbone. Both single and multilayered light-emitting diodes were fabricated by vacuum deposition of the Al or Ca onto a polymer film formed by spin-coating. Some of them exhibited a white EL color, due to the formation of a charge transfer complex. From photophysical and time-resolved transient decay studies, the formation of a charge separated complex was proposed. In this paper, the synthesis, characterization, photophysical properties and electroluminescence device (ELD) applications of silicon-based alternating copolymers are discussed.