Optical waveguides and polarised emission of self-assembled perylenediimide-bridged silsesquioxane microtubes

A new organic waveguide material based on perylenediimide-bridged silsesquioxane (PTCDBS) microtubes is reported. The fluorescent, photoluminescence (PL) imaging and spatial-resolved PL measurements are performed on individual PTCDBS microtubes with changing the excitation position. The result demonstrates that the tube wall can act as an optical waveguide that allows the propagation of excited luminescence in the range 550-700-nm along the tube axis over several tens micrometers. In addition, the luminescence intensity exhibits an obvious dependence on the direction of the emission light polarisation with respect to the tube axis. The organic microtubes might be useful for flexible photonic microdevices, such as optical switches and interconnects, and polarised light-emitting diodes.