THE PLASTIC LED - A FLEXIBLE LIGHT-EMITTING DEVICE USING A POLYANILINE TRANSPARENT ELECTRODE

We describe a light-emitting device that is mechanically flexible; it can be sharply bent and curled without failure. These properties are o btained by using poly(ethylene terephthalate), PET, coated with a thin film of polyaniline as a flexible transparent hole-injecting electrod e and soluble semiconducting polymer ethoxy,5-(2'-ethyl-hexoxy)-1,4-ph enylenevinylene), MEH-PPV, as the emissive layer. The electroluminesce nt properties of this ''plastic'' light-emitting diode are the same as those of devices based on indium-tin oxide (ITO) hole injecting conta cts, with a turn-on voltage of 2-3 Volts and an external quantum effic iency of about 1%.