Abstract

The new year has begun with an unusual glow for researchers in Sweden who have made the first polymerbased light-emitting diode (LED) that gives off polarized light. In the future, improved versions of this device might be used to provide background illumination in liquid crystal displays (LCDs), which currently require a polarizing filter to furnish the necessary polarized light. The researchers made the LED using a substituted polythiophene film that luminesces when an electric current is passed through it. The polymer chains in such materials normally have a random orientation, like cooked spaghetti. As a result, the light they emit is not polarized—that is, the electric field vector of the light wave points in a random direction. But when the polymer film is stretched, the macromolecules are extended and become aligned. Scientists previously showed that when luminescent polymer films are stretched in this way and illuminated with light, they emit polarized light, in which case ...

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