Science/Medicine : Researchers Aglow Over Polymer

Researchers at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, have fabricated light-emitting transistors, or diodes, from organic polymers and predict that these diodes could be used to make inexpensive displays for electronic equipment, possibly including television screens. Light-emitting diodes made from conventional metallic semiconductors are expensive and too inefficient for most such uses.

The researchers reported in the journal Nature that, like plastics, the new, easily prepared polymer is tough and flexible and can be molded in specific shapes at low temperatures without risk of damaging other electronic components. When it is electrically excited, it emits readily visible yellow-green light.

Although the polymer is still in an early state of development, researchers predicted that it could eventually replace conventional video display terminals and liquid crystal displays, such as those in televisions and laptop computers, in applications in which thinness and low energy use are important.