Conjugated polymer particles: Towards self-assembling organic photonics

The preparation of conjugated polymer particles with uniform size is presented and discussed. The particles can selfassemble into photonic crystal arrangements exhibiting a photonic band-gap. This way, active optical assemblies with an optical stop-band and an independent fluorescence band can be fabricated. To showcase the applicability of the particles, which can be processed from dispersion, optical core sheath fibers are presented. The particles can be extruded into the core of the fiber with polyacrylonitrile as the cladding material. The particle dispersions can be easily processed by dryspinning and are confined to only the core of the fiber, where they assemble into a random close packing.