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Effects of alkyl chain positioning on conjugated polymer microstructure and field-effect mobilities

  • Polymers/Soft Matter Research Letter
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Abstract

Solubilizing alkyl chains play a crucial role in the design of semiconducting polymers because they define the materials solubility and process-ability as well as both the crystallinity and solid-state microstructure. In this paper, we present a scarcely explored design approach by attaching the alkyl side chains on one side (cis-) or on both sides (trans-) of the conjugated backbone. We further investigate the effects of this structural modification on the solid-state properties of the polymers and on the charge-carrier mobilities in organic thin-film transistors.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Scott Watkins at CSIRO for performing the PESA measurements. B. C. S. acknowledges the National Research Fund of Luxembourg and the EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Secondment Scheme for financial support. This work was in part carried out under the EPSRC Projects EP/F056710/1, EP/I019278/1, and EP/G037515/1 with support from the Centre for Plastic Electronics at Imperial.

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Author notes

  1. Bob C. Schroeder

    Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, 443 Via Ortega, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Bob C. Schroeder, Christian B. Nielsen & Iain McCulloch

  2. Department of Materials and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Paul Westacott & Natalie Stingelin

  3. Department of Physics and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Jeremy Smith, Stephan Rossbauer & Thomas D. Anthopoulos

  4. Physical Sciences and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Iain McCulloch

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  1. Bob C. Schroeder
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Correspondence to Bob C. Schroeder.

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Schroeder, B.C., Nielsen, C.B., Westacott, P. et al. Effects of alkyl chain positioning on conjugated polymer microstructure and field-effect mobilities. MRS Communications 5, 435–440 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2015.49

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