Microfabrication of an electroluminescent polymer light emitting diode pixel array

We describe a method to microfabricate a light emitting diode array with pixels based on conjugated electroluminescent polymers sandwiched between appropriate electrodes. This method, based on direct photoablation with the 193 nm emission of an excimer laser, maintains the properties of these unique polymers. The technique as described here has already achieved an array of 20 mu m x 20 mu m pixels with enhanced electroluminescence (EL) from these pixels and possible spectral tuning of the EL by the application of varying external field. This method can be extended to achieve nanometer dimensionalities using near-field nanolithography. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.