Light-emitting polymers and carbon nanotube electron emitters for optoelectronic displays

Polymeric light-emitting diodes with sufficient brightnesses, sufficient efficiencies, sufficiently low driving voltages, and various interesting features have been reported. The relatively short device lifetime, however, still remains as a major problem to be solved before any commercial applications can be realized. In this regard, carbon nanotubes have recently been proposed as more robust electron field emitters for flat-panel displays. We have synthesized large arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, from which micropatterns of the aligned nanotubes suitable for flat-panel displays were fabricated on various substrates. In this paper, we summarize our work on the synthesis and microfabrication of light-emitting polymers and carbon nanotubes for displays with reference to other complementary work as appropriate.