Yen-Ju Cheng received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the National Taiwan University (NTU) in 2004 under the supervision of Professor Tien-Yau Luh. After spending another year as a postdoctoral assistant with Prof. Luh at NTU, he joined Prof. Alex K.-Y. Jen's group as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington in 2005. In the summer of 2008, he joined the Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chiao Tung University, in Taiwan as an assistant professor. His current research interest is focused on the design, synthesis, and characterization of organic and polymeric functional materials for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications.

No abstract

This article describes the syntheses and electrooptical applications of liquid crystalline (LC) conjugated polymers, for example, poly(p-phenylene vinylene), polyfluorene, polythiophene, and other conjugated polymers. The polymerization involves several mechanisms: the Gilch route, Heck coupling, or Knoevenagel condensation for poly(pphenylenevinylene)s, the Suzukior Yamamoto-coupling reaction for polyfluorenes, and miscellaneous coupling reactions for other conjugated polymers. These LC conjugated polymers are classified into two types: conjugated main chain polymers with long alkyl side chains, namely main-chain type LC polymers, and conjugated polymers grafting with mesogenic side groups, namely side-chain type LC conjugated polymers. In general, the former shows higher transition temperature and only nematic phase; the latter possesses lower transition temperature and more mesophases, for example, smectic and nematic phases, depending on the structure of mesogenic side chains. The fully conjugated main chain promises them as good candidates for polarized electroluminescent or fieldeffect devices. The polarized emission can be obtained by surface rubbing or thermal annealing in liquid crystalline phase, with maximum dichroic ratio more than 20. In addition, conjugated oligomers with LC properties are also included and discussed in this article. Several oligo-fluorene derivatives show outstanding polarized emission properties and potential use in LCD backlight application.

No abstract

A nanotechnological approach is applied to measurements of the electric field dependence of resistance under a high electric field while in low voltage. With this technique, the conduction mechanism on a mesoscopic scale is explored in a single, nonagglomerated nanofiber. Polyaniline nanofibers are prepared by vigorous mixing of aniline and oxidation agent ammonium persulfate in acid solution. They exhibit a uniform nanoscale morphology rather than agglomeration as that produced via conventional chemical oxidation. The as-synthesized polyaniline nanofibers are doped (dedoped) with a HCl acid (NH(3) base), and their temperature behaviors of resistances follow an exponential function with an exponent of T(-1/2). To measure the conduction mechanism in a single nanofiber, the dielectrophoresis technique is implemented to position nanofibers on top of two electrodes with a nanogap of 100-600 nm, patterned by electron-beam lithography. After the devices are irradiated by electron beam to reduce contact resistances, their temperature behaviors and electric field dependences are unveiled. The experimental results agree well with the theoretical model of charging energy limited tunneling. Other theoretical models such as Efros-Shklovskii and Mott's one-dimensional hopping conduction are excluded after comparisons and arguments. Through fitting, the size of the conductive grain, separation distance between two grains, and charging energy per grain in a single polyaniline nanofiber are estimated to be about 4.9 nm, 2.8 nm, and 78 meV, respectively. The nanotechnological approach, where the nanogap and the dielectrophoresis technique are used for single nanofiber device fabrication, is applied for determination of mesoscopic charge transport in a polyaniline conducting polymer.