Bright light emission and waveguiding in conjugated polymer nanofibers electrospun from organic-salt added solutions

TL;DR

This paper reports the fabrication of highly emissive, waveguiding conjugated polymer nanofibers via electrospinning with organic salt additives, maintaining optical properties and enabling potential applications in sensing and nanophotonics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel electrospinning method using organic salts to produce uniform, highly emissive polymer nanofibers with preserved optical properties and waveguiding capabilities.

Findings

Organic salt addition yields uniform 180 nm fibers.

Optical properties remain unchanged with salt addition.

Nanofibers exhibit self-waveguiding and polarized photoluminescence.

Abstract

Light emitting electrospun nanofibers of poly-[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl)-co-(N,N'-diphenyl)-N,N'-di(p-butyl-oxy-phenyl)-1,4-diaminobenzene)] (PFO-PBAB) are produced by electrospinning under different experimental conditions. In particular, uniform fibers with average diameter of 180 nm are obtained by adding an organic salt to the electrospinning solution. The spectroscopic investigation assesses that the presence of the organic salt does not alter the optical properties of the active material, therefore providing an alternative approach for the fabrication of highly emissive conjugated polymer nanofibers. The produced nanofibers display self-waveguiding of light, and polarized photoluminescence, which is especially promising for embedding active electrospun fibers in sensing and nanophotonic devices.