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HOMO/LUMO Energy level tuning of bithiopheneimide and its homopolymer by heteroatom relative position engineering

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Abstract

Bithiopheneimide (BTI) has been one of the most important electron-deficient building blocks for semiconducting polymers in polymer solar cells (PSCs) and organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). A novel bithiopheneimide (BTI) unit and its homopolymer with sulfur atoms in a different relative position from the published isomers were synthesized in a high yield. Electrophilic bromination of the BTI with liquid bromine reacts slowly with a dramatically changed regioselectivity (preferentially at 4-H of thiophene) because the intramolecular hydrogen bond stabilized the 4-substitution intermediate. The homopolymer exhibits good thermal stability, a strong UV-vis absorption, high HOMO/LUMO energy levels (-6.18/-3.10 eV), and a wide bandgap (3.1 eV). Compared with the published isomers, the novel BTI unit and homopolymer both exhibit similar HOMOs, considerably rising LUMOs, and increasing bandgaps, suggesting that heteroatom relative position engineering primarily influences LUMO level and bandgap with minor effects on the HOMO level.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) and Sci-go Lab (www.sci-go.com) for the helpful material testing service of NMR, MS, elemental analysis, and GPC. This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province [2018CFB413]; Open Fund of Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Green Materials for Light Industry [202107B08]; HBUT College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program [X202110500106].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory of Green Materials for Light Industry, Hubei University of Technology, Wuhan, 430068, P. R. China

    Qiang Wu, Weiyi Zhou, Fuhai Deng, Chuanqun Hu & Xipo Zhao

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  1. Qiang Wu
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  3. Fuhai Deng
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Correspondence to Weiyi Zhou.

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10965_2023_3603_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Supplementary file 1 Supplementary data for this study can be found online, including NMR and Mass spectra of all compounds, as well as the GPC report (PDF 1106 KB)

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Wu, Q., Zhou, W., Deng, F. et al. HOMO/LUMO Energy level tuning of bithiopheneimide and its homopolymer by heteroatom relative position engineering. J Polym Res 30, 226 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-023-03603-y

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