Electron-beam-activated light-emitting polymer nanofibers

We demonstrate a simple approach to high-stability light-emitting polymer nanofibers. We show that nonluminescent polyacrylamide (PAM) nanofibers, when being irradiated by electron beams, can be locally activated into light-emitting nanofibers with high resistance to photobleaching, precise emission patterns, spectrally tunable emission, high repeatability, and great mechanical flexibility. Compared to unirradiated nanofibers, the electron-beam-activated PAM nanofibers show an obvious increase in refractive index of about 0.1. Due to its high versatility, the electron-beam-activated nanofiber demonstrated here represents a promising nanometer-scale integratable light source for functional nanophotonic circuits or devices.