Enhancement of Photostability in Blue‐Light‐Emitting Polymers Doped with Gold Nanoparticles

A dramatic increase in the photostability of a blue‐light‐emitting polymer, poly(9,9‐dioctylfluorene), was achieved by the addition of 5–10 nm gold nanoparticles. The optical absorption band of the gold nanoparticles was tuned to resonate the triplet exciton ground state bandgap energy of the polymer. Photo‐oxidation rate of poly(9,9‐dioctylfluorene) was effectively reduced by doping the polymer with very small amounts (≈10−6–10−5 volume fraction) of the gold nanoparticles. Retarded photo‐oxidation in PDOF nanocomposite films with various doped gold nanoparticles. magnified image Retarded photo‐oxidation in PDOF nanocomposite films with various doped gold nanoparticles.