Polarized organic electroluminescence: Ordering from the top

We demonstrate a method for achieving polarized organic electroluminescence for liquid crystalline conjugated polymers that allows the polymer to be deposited directly onto the anode. The technique utilizes a top-down alignment approach whereby the predeposited polymer was aligned from above using a rubbed polyimide master and a smectic liquid crystal transfer layer. The liquid crystal/polyimide master bilayer was sandwiched with the liquid crystalline polymer that had been deposited onto the electrode. The sandwiched layers were then heated to achieve alignment before the removal of the polyimide master and liquid crystal transfer layer. Using this method, poly[2,7-{9,9-di(2-ethylhexyl)}fluorene] (PF2-6) was aligned to give an anisotropic polymer film. Light emitted from single layer light-emitting diodes containing the aligned PF2-6 had integrated dichroic ratios of up to 9.7. At 100 ${\mathrm{cd/m}}^2,$ the single layer devices had external quantum and power efficiencies of 0.08% and 0.05 lm/W, respectively. Bilayer devices containing an electron transport layer between the PF2-6 and the cathode gave emitted light with good dichroic ratios and with the external quantum and power efficiencies at 100 ${\mathrm{cd/m}}^2$ being increased to 2.2% and 1.1 lm/W.