Molecular Design, Synthesis and Characterization of Thiophene-based Organic π-conjugated Semiconducting Polymers

Organic electronics is the study of electronics that employs organic semi-conductive polymers. The study of this field allows scientist to address global issues by utilizing renewable resources.  Polythiophene, one of the most studied π -conjugated semi-conducting polymers, has applications in organic light emitting diodes and organic field effect transistors. Poly 3-hexylthiophene is a  common polythiophene due to favorable properties which include; excellent charge carrier mobility and good solubility in common solvents. P3HT also has several disadvantages that must be addressed. It has weak oxidation stability owing to the high HOMO energy level and fairly large band gap.  Our approach is to synthesis a similar polythiophene that has a decreased HOMO level by molecular modification and enhance the π-conjugation by lowering intra-chain torsion. Athiophene-based polymer, poly-benzobisthiazole-vinylene-quaterthiophene, PBVQT,  will be synthesized which is hypothesized to have low band gap and high oxidation stability.