Poly-p-phenylene is a very attractive conducting polymer due to its resemblance with poly-p-phenylene vinylene. Since it is very rigid, intractable and difficult to process, it has not been very popular in the fabrication of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). We have co-polymerized benzene and naphthalene using Kovacic's method, which uses the mechanism of propagation of oxidative coupling occurring through a dehydrogenation step via radical cations. The resulting co-polymer is soluble in common organic solvents like toluene and has interesting electrical and optical properties and shows strong photoluminescence. The copolymer has low melting point and can be purified using vacuum sublimation. The new polymer has an optical absorption band in the visible region of the optical spectrum and a photoluminescence maximum in the orange region. The polymer has been characterized using spectroscopic and thermogravimetric techniques. OLED structure has been fabricated using indium-tin oxide as the bottom electrode, evaporated polymer as the luminescent layer and aluminum as the cathode. The devices give bright electroluminescence on application of approximately 5-V d.c. The photoluminescence of the polymer has also been reported. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.