Influence of the elimination temperature on light emitting devices prepared from poly(p‐phenylene vinylene)

Abstract

Abstract We report detailed measurements on the thermal conversion of the tetrahydrothiophene prepolymer to poly( p ‐phenylene vinylene) (PPV) and show the influence of the elimination conditions on the properties of PPV and on light emitting devices (LEDs) prepared in the configuration ITO/PPV/Al. Electroluminescence correlates with a diode behavior in the current—voltage characteristic and can be observed for PPV heated at a minimum temperature of 130°C. Increase of the elimination temperature results in a red‐shift of both the photoluminescence and electroluminescence spectra by ≈10 nm, which enables us to control the color of our LEDs in a small range. We have observed that refered to the brightness of the devices the optimum elimination temperature is 160°C, and we show that a further increase of temperature does not improve the properties of PPV‐ LEDs.