Uniform electroactive fibre-like micelle nanowires for organic electronics

Micelles formed by the self-assembly of block copolymers in selective solvents have attracted widespread attention and have uses in a wide variety of fields, whereas applications based on their electronic properties are virtually unexplored. Herein we describe studies of solution-processable, low-dispersity, electroactive fibre-like micelles of controlled length from π-conjugated diblock copolymers containing a crystalline regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) core and a solubilizing, amorphous regiosymmetric poly(3-hexylthiophene) or polystyrene corona. Tunnelling atomic force microscopy measurements demonstrate that the individual fibres exhibit appreciable conductivity. The fibres were subsequently incorporated as the active layer in field-effect transistors. The resulting charge carrier mobility strongly depends on both the degree of polymerization of the core-forming block and the fibre length, and is independent of corona composition. The use of uniform, colloidally stable electroactive fibre-like micelles based on common π-conjugated block copolymers highlights their significant potential to provide fundamental insight into charge carrier processes in devices, and to enable future electronic applications.

Bright color reflective displays with interlayer reflectors

A good solution to the reflective display of color has been a major challenge for the display industry, with very limited color gamuts demonstrated to date. Conventional side-by-side red, green and blue color filters waste two-thirds of incident light. The alternative of stacking cyan, magenta and yellow layers is also challenging--a 10% loss per layer compounds to nearly 50% overall. Here we demonstrate an architecture that interleaves absorbing-to-clear shutters with matched wavelength selective reflectors. This increases color gamut by reducing losses and more cleanly separating the color channels, and gives much wider choice of electro-optic colorants.