Thin Films of Conducting Polymers in Electrochemical Light-E mitting Devices and in Microcontact Printing of Liquid Cryst al Light Valves

Characteristics of various electrochemical light-emitting devices having a configuration such as, for example, Al/MEH-PPV+TBATS/ITO (where TBATS = tetrabutylammonium p-toluenesulfonate) are reported and compared with similar devices using different electrolytes and different electrode materials. Flexible, {open_quotes}completely organic{close_quotes} polymer dispersed liquid crystal light valves have been fabricated from transparent plastic substrates on which a conducting film of polypyrrole has been deposited from an aqueous solution of polymerizing pyrrole. A new concept, {open_quotes}microcontact printing{close_quotes}, is investigated for patterning polypyrrole deposited on plastic and glass substrates. The smallest polypyrrole features produced to date have {approximately}20-30 {mu}m dimensions. The electronic spectra of the polypyrrole is critically dependent on the degree of hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of the substrate surface.