Mechanical, Morphological, and Charge Transport Properties of NDI Polymers with Variable Built‐in Π‐Conjugation Lengths Probed by Simulation and Experiment
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- Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 USA, School of Automation Engineering University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu 611731 China, Department of Chemistry City University of Hong Kong Kowloon 999077 Hong Kong
- Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg SE 412 96 Sweden
- Department of Chemical Engineering Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani Rajasthan 333031 India
- Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 USA
- Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 USA, School of Automation Engineering University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Chengdu 611731 China
- Department of Chemistry City University of Hong Kong Kowloon 999077 Hong Kong
- Laboratory of Organic Electronics Linköping University Norrköping 60174 Sweden
- Department of Chemistry and the Materials Research Center Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL 60208 USA, School of Materials Science and Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta GA 30332 USA
Abstract Mechanically deformable polymeric semiconductors are a key material for fabricating flexible organic thin‐film transistors (FOTFTs)—the building block of electronic circuits and wearable electronic devices. However, for many π‐conjugated polymers achieving mechanical deformability and efficient charge transport remains challenging. Here the effects of polymer backbone bending stiffness and film microstructure on mechanical flexibility and charge transport are investigated via experimental and computational methods for a series of electron‐transporting naphthalene diimide (NDI) polymers having differing extents of π‐conjugation. The results show that replacing increasing amounts of the π‐conjugated comonomer dithienylvinylene (TVT) with the π‐nonconjugated comonomer dithienylethane (TET) in the backbone of the fully π‐conjugated polymeric semiconductor, PNDI‐TVT 100 (yielding polymeric series PNDI‐TVT x , 100 ≥ x ≥ 0), lowers backbone rigidity, degree of texturing, and π–π stacking interactions between NDI moieties. Importantly, this comonomer substitution increases the mechanical robustness of PNDI‐TVT x while retaining efficient charge transport. Thus, reducing the TVT content of PNDI‐TVT x suppresses film crack formation and dramatically stabilizes the field‐effect electron mobility upon bending (e.g., 2 mm over 2000 bending cycles). This work provides a route to tune π–π stacking in π‐conjugated polymers while simultaneously promoting mechanical flexibility and retaining good carrier mobility in FOTFTs.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- NONE; AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 2202505
- Journal Information:
- Advanced Functional Materials, Journal Name: Advanced Functional Materials; ISSN 1616-301X
- Publisher:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- Germany
- Language:
- English
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