130 research outputs found
Confinement Effects on the Crystalline Features of Poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene)
Typical device architectures in polymer-based optoelectronic devices, such as
field effect transistors organic light emitting diodes and photovoltaic cells
include sub-100 nm semiconducting polymer thin-film active layers, whose
microstructure is likely to be subject to finite-size effects. The aim of this
study was to investigate effect of the two-dimensional spatial confinement on
the internal structure of the semiconducting polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene)
(PFO). PFO melts were confined inside the cylindrical nanopores of anodic
aluminium oxide (AAO) templates and crystallized via two crystallization
strategies, namely, in the presence or in the absence of a surface bulk
reservoir located at the template surface. We show that highly textured
semiconducting nanowires with tuneable crystal orientation can be thus
produced. Moreover, our results indicate that employing the appropriate
crystallization conditions extended-chain crystals can be formed in
confinement. The results presented here demonstrate the simple fabrication and
crystal engineering of ordered arrays of PFO nanowires; a system with potential
applications in devices where anisotropic optical properties are required, such
as polarized electroluminescence, waveguiding, optical switching, lasing, etc
Solvent Vapor Annealing of a Diblock Copolymer Thin Film with a Nonselective and a Selective Solvent:Importance of Pathway for the Morphological Changes
Induction of Circularly Polarized Electroluminescence from an Achiral Light-Emitting Polymer via a Chiral Small-Molecule Dopant
Focusing Capillary Optics for Use in Solution Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering
Measurements of the global conformation of macromolecules can be carried out using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). Glass focusing capillaries, manufactured at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), have been successfully employed for SAXS measurements on the heme protein cytochrome c. These capillaries provide high X-ray flux into a spot size of tens of micrometres, permitting short exposures of small-volume samples. Such a capability is ideal for use in conjunction with microfluidic mixers, where time resolution may be determined by beam size and sample volumes are kept small to facilitate mixing and conserve material
Lamellar Diblock Copolymer Thin Films during Solvent Vapor Annealing Studied by GISAXS:Different Behavior of Parallel and Perpendicular Lamellae
The reorientation of lamellae and the dependence of the lamellar spacing, Dlam, on polymer volume fraction, ϕP, Dlam ∝ ϕP–β, in diblock copolymer thin films during solvent vapor annealing (SVA) are examined by combining white light interferometry (WLI) and grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS). A thin film of lamellae-forming poly(styrene-b-butadiene) prepared by spin-coating features lamellae of different orientations with the lamellar spacing depending on orientation. During annealing with ethyl acetate (EAC) vapor, it is found that perpendicular lamellae behave differently from parallel ones, which is due to the fact that their initial lamellar thicknesses differ strongly. Quantitatively, the swelling process is composed of three regimes and the drying process of two regimes. The first two regimes of swelling are associated with a significant structural rearrangement of the lamellae; i.e., the lamellae first become thicker, and then perpendicular and randomly oriented lamellae vanish, which results in a purely parallel orientation at the end of the swelling process. The rearrangement is attributed to the increase of mobility of the polymer chains imparted by the solvent and to a decrease of total free energy of the thin film. In the third regime of swelling, the scaling exponent is found to be β = −0.32. During drying, the deswelling is nonaffine which may be a consequence of the increase of nonfavorable segmental interactions as the solvent is removed
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