Issue 36, 2013

Confined organization of fullerene units along high polymer chains

Abstract

Conductive fullerene (C60) units were designed to be arranged in one dimensional close contact by locally organizing them with covalent bonds in a spatially constrained manner. Combined molecular dynamics and quantum chemical calculations predicted that the intramolecular electronic interactions (i.e. charge transport) between the pendant C60 units could be controlled by the length of the spacers linking the C60 units and the polymer main chain. In this context, C60 side-chain polymers with high relative degrees of polymerization up to 1220 and fullerene compositions up to 53% were synthesized by ruthenium catalyzed ring-opening metathesis polymerization of the corresponding norbornene-functionalized monomers. UV/vis absorption and photothermal deflection spectra corroborated the enhanced inter-fullerene interactions along the polymer chains. The electron mobility measured for the thin film field-effect transistor devices from the polymers was more than an order of magnitude higher than that from the monomers, as a result of the stronger electronic coupling between the adjacent fullerene units within the long polymer chains. This molecular design strategy represents a general approach to the enhancement of charge transport properties of organic materials via covalent bond-based organization.

Graphical abstract: Confined organization of fullerene units along high polymer chains

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 Jun 2013
Accepted
15 Jul 2013
First published
16 Jul 2013

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013,1, 5747-5755

Confined organization of fullerene units along high polymer chains

L. Fang, P. Liu, B. R. Sveinbjornsson, S. Atahan-Evrenk, K. Vandewal, S. Osuna, G. Jiménez-Osés, S. Shrestha, G. Giri, P. Wei, A. Salleo, A. Aspuru-Guzik, R. H. Grubbs, K. N. Houk and Z. Bao, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2013, 1, 5747 DOI: 10.1039/C3TC31158A

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