Fluorescence light emission at 1 eV from a conjugated polymer

While polymer light-emitting diodes are currently finding commercial applications in displays and lighting, the development of low bandgap polymers emitting in the infrared has received much less attention in spite of potential applications for instance in the field of communication technologies. We report here a light emission at 1 eV from a low bandgap polymer made of an alternation of dialkoxy-phenylene units and a low bandgap monomer composed of an electron accepting 2-thia-1,3,5,8-tetraaza-cyclopenta[b]naphthalene group fenced with electron donating thiophene units. The electronic structure of the polymer chains has been characterized at a quantum-chemical level to shed light into the experimental results. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.