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Thin-film small molecule/polymer hybrid bilayer photovoltaic cells have been constructed, exhibiting power conversion efficiencies of 0.71% under 80 mW/cm2 white light illumination. The parameters influencing the photovoltage of these devices are explored by reversing the order of the photoactive layers while maintaining the same electrode configuration. It has been found that the properties of the organic photoactive layers play an important role in determining the direction of current flow and the photovoltage of the device. Comparison is made to analogous pure small molecule bilayer devices, and conclusions about some of the factors influencing device efficiency are drawn. It has been shown that ordering of the band offsets of the two organic materials plays an important role in determining the polarity of the photocurrent and the photovoltage of the device.

Among the various applications for reversible holographic storage media, a particularly interesting one is time-gated holographic imaging (TGHI). This technique could provide a noninvasive medical diagnosis tool, related to optical coherence tomography. In this technique, biological samples are illuminated within their transparency window with near-infrared light, and information about subsurface features is obtained by a detection method that distinguishes between reflected photons originating from a certain depth and those scattered from various depths. Such an application requires reversible holographic storage media with very high sensitivity in the near-infrared. Photorefractive materials, in particular certain amorphous organic systems, are in principle promising candidate media, but their sensitivity has so far been too low, mainly owing to their long response times in the near-infrared. Here we introduce an organic photorefractive material -- a composite based on the poly(arylene vinylene) copolymer TPD-PPV -- that exhibits favourable near-infrared characteristics. We show that pre-illumination of this material at a shorter wavelength before holographic recording improves the response time by a factor of 40. This process was found to be reversible. We demonstrate multiple holographic recording with this technique at video rate under practical conditions.

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Wave-guided thin-film distributed-feedback (DFB) polymer lasers are fabricated by spin coating a PPV-derived semiconducting polymer, thianthrene-DOO-PPV, onto oxidised silicon wafers with corrugated second-order periodic gratings. The gratings are written by reactive ion beam etching. Laser action is achieved by transverse pumping with picosecond laser pulses (wavelength 347.15 nm, duration 35 ps). The DFB-laser surface emission and edge emission are analysed. Outside the grating region the polymer film is used for comparative wave-guided travelling wave laser (amplified spontaneous emission (ASE)) studies. The pump pulse threshold energy density for wave-guided DFB-laser action (4-9 µJ cm-2) is found to be approximately a factor of two lower than the threshold for wave-guided travelling wave laser action. The spectral width of the DFB laser (down to DFB\approx0.07 nm) is considerably narrower than that of the travelling wave laser (TWL\approx14 nm). The DFB-laser emission is highly linearly polarised transverse to the grating axis (TE mode). Only at high pump pulse energy densities does an additional weak TM mode build up. The surface-emitted DFB-laser radiation has a low divergence along the grating direction. For both the DFB lasers and the travelling wave lasers, gain saturation occurs at high excitation energy densities

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