In-situ measurement of photoelectron spectra of polypyrrole during electrochemical undoping/doping cycles has been carried out by using an open-type electrochemical cell. It has been observed that the ionization potential decreases with decreased electrochemical potential. This result seems to be reasonable because the decreased electrochemical potential corresponds to the undoping or recovery of electrons into vacant state of valence band.

Unique characteristics such as quenching of photoluminescence and improvement of photovoltaic effect were observed in acceptor polymer, (cyano-substituted poly (p-phenylene vinylene)), CN-PPV/donor polymer (poly(3-hexylthiophene), P3HT composites. By taking account of the difference in electronic energy states of both CN-PPV and P3HT, these characteristics are interpreted in terms of photoinduced charge transfer between CN-PPV and P3HT and formation of fractal network.

Recent technologies of organic film devices are reviewed. New technologies of fabrication and characterization of organic thin films, electro-mechanical conversion materials, and applications for electrical and optical devices are discussed. In this review paper, especially organic light emitting diodes, tunneling junctions using polyimide Langmuir-Blodgett films, tunneling spectroscopy and high-density recording, plastic actuators using conducting polymers, molecular self-assembly process for fabricating organic thin film devices are reviewed.

The nanoporosity installed in conjugated polymer films prepared by electrophoretic deposition makes it difficult to measure the amount of polymer deposited on a substrate. Here, an alternative approach, the estimation of material efficiency of the electrophoretic deposition from the optical absorption spectra of the residual suspensions has been studied. The ultimate recovery rate, which becomes smaller in suspensions with lower acetonitrile content, does not depend on the deposition voltage. The light scattering by the colloidal particles seems to be absent in residual suspensions after a deposition long enough to reach the ultimate recovery rate, indicating the exhaustion of the colloidal particles. Although the deposition rate of the polymer markedly lowers upon coating of the deposition electrode with PEDOT, the ultimate recovery rate remains unchanged. These results suggest that the material efficiency in this deposition method is limited by the generation rate of the colloidal particles in the suspension.

In this paper, we have proposed to apply a combinatorial approach to investigate the Schottky diode based on electrochemically polymerized conjugated polymer. The concept of combinatorial approach was emerged in the biochemical field and lately used in the materials science to screen a number of experimental conditions efficiently. Some tips for designing the polymerization bath suitable for our purpose, such as the way to suppress the interference of polymerization currents, have been described. In the case of Schottky diodes based on poly (3-methylthiophene), the system chosen to test our idea, the effects of polymer thickness and the supporting salt on the device characteristics have been surveyed clearly and rapidly. The map or library of the relationship between the polymerization condition and device characteristic may be useful to tune the device characteristics as desired. Our preliminary result has shown that the combinatorial approach proposed here can be a powerful tool to investigate the conjugated polymer devices by electrochemical polymerization such as electrochromic devices.

It has been shown that the maskless dye-diffusion technique is applicable to a conjugated polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene). The introduction of Coumarin 6 and Nile red results in green and white emission, with the increased onset voltage for the both cases. It has also been confirmed that the heat treatment effect during the maskless dye diffusion technique results in not the increase but the decrease of the onset voltage, indicating that the dye plays a role of carrier trap in the polymer.

Photoirradiation effects on the polymer light-emitting devices (PLEDs) with a semitransparent-Al cathode have been studied. A light-emitting polymers, a poly (p-phenylene vinylene) derivative MDOPPV has been used in this study. Upon photoirradiation, the emission intensity at a constant voltage was rapidly decreased. However, the quantum efficiency of electroluminescence remained constant, indicating the spatial separation between recombination zone and photooxidized defects. On the other hand, the quantum efficiency of photoluminescence rapidly dropped upon similar photoirradation. These can be understood by taking the difference in the spatial distribution and the origin of excitons between electro- and photo-luminescence processes. It was also found that the photooxidation rate of the polymer film whose thickness is ca. 100 nm does not have thickness dependence, suggesting that the photooxidation of the polymer proceeds uniformly throughout the device.

Optically patternable light-emitting devices based on conducting polymers were fabricated and were characterized. The cathode of the devices is made with a semitransparent-Al film, which enables to photoinduced degradation of the polymers in air. The optically patternable devices were successfully made with poly (2-methoxy-5-dodecyloxy-p-phenylene vinylene) (MDOPPV), as well as with poly (3-dodecylthiophene) (PAT12). However, optical absorption study indicated that the patterning mechanism of the MDOPPV device is considerably different from that of the PAT12 device.

A device structure for polymer Schottky diode, which has the glass chimney as a dopant reservoir enabling the reduction of series resistance without cathode corrosion, has been proposed. Doping with the acetonitrile solution of FeCl3 in the device resulted in the increase in the forward-bias current by one order of magnitude without notable increase in reverse-bias current, suggesting that the doping reduced the series resistance. It is found that the penetration speed depends on the solvents. Short time doping with the nitromethane solution of FeCl3 resulted in the increase by three orders of magnitude. However, doping for a long period yielded the considerable increase in the reverse-bias current due to the complete penetration of dopatn solution. When the upper opening of glass chimney of device is left opened and the sample after doping stored in air, the forward-bias current of the device reduced rapidly due to the undoping and/or degradation of polymer. It is possible to protect the degradation of device characteristics after doping, by sealing the chimney and storing the device in vacuum.

Recent new technologies of electro-mechanical conversion devices have been reviewed. Especially, the electrochemical properties of anisotropic actuators using polypyrrole have been reviewed in detailed and the realization of the bimorph (or bending beam) structure without artificial adhesive agent is introduced.

Optical recording has been performed successfully by the preirradiation of light upon the precursor of poly (arylene vinylene) conducting polymers such as poly (p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV) and poly (1,4-naphthalene vinylene) (PNV) and subsequent thermal treatment. The effect has been tentatively interpreted in terms of the deterioration of the irradiated area of the precursor polymer in which polymerization is suppressed. Furthermore, an orange electroluminescent (EL) diode utilizing PNV has been demonstrated for the first time and the EL properties of PNV are discussed in comparison with those of EL diode utilizing PPV. The EL emission of these two devices are discussed in terms of radiative recombination of the singlet polaron exciton formed by the injection of electrons and holes, the difference of effective conjugation length and the interchain transfer of polaron excitons.