CAREER: Controlled Polycondensation Techniques as a Route to Novel Semiconducting Polymer Architectures

化学系的大分子、超分子和纳米化学项目将资助卡内基梅隆大学的凯文·努南教授开发合成有机导电聚合物的新方法。聚合物是长链有机分子，在日常生活的许多方面都有发现，研究小组正在开发新的有机电子材料，这意味着它们是由碳基分子制成的，而不是更常用的无机材料，如硅基材料。导电碳基（有机）分子在实现高效、经济、广泛应用的电子和光学器件方面有着巨大的希望。正在开发的精密合成需要催化剂设计的进步和对聚合物链生长的不同化学步骤如何发生的基本见解。这项工作有望对有机电子学的科学和技术产生更广泛的科学影响，并将为本科生和研究生提供跨学科的研究经验。正在进行的教育活动包括将金属基催化纳入所需的本科实验室。实验室发展的视频被放到网上，以帮助其他大学采用。在这个项目中，Noonan教授正在开发新的方法来控制供体-受体构建块的聚合。在聚合物材料中加入电子接受芳香族单元已经导致了有机太阳能电池器件的巨大改进，但是由于聚合物批次的差异，这些系统的性能常常会发生变化。本研究的目的是利用可控的缩聚方法来聚合高功能的芳香族构建块。将这些单元整合到聚合物中的精密合成将需要金属配体设计的进步，对金属如何与生长中的聚合物链相互作用的理解，以及对不同官能团（即酮、酯、酰胺）如何改变链生长反应的洞察力。目前正在开发和探索一个单体库，以加强对催化剂转移缩聚的机理理解，并合理设计适合这种受控聚合方法的新受体系统。

With this award, the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program of the Division of Chemistry, is funding Professor Kevin Noonan of Carnegie Mellon University to develop new methods for the synthesis of organic conducting polymers. Polymers are long chain organic molecules and are found in many facets of everyday life, and the research team is developing new electronic materials that are organic, meaning they are made from carbon-based molecules rather than the more commonly used inorganic materials, such as those based on silicon. Electrically conducting carbon-based (organic) molecules hold enormous promise for realizing highly efficient, affordable, and broadly available electronic and optical devices. The precision synthesis being developed requires advances in catalyst design and a fundamental insight into how the different chemical steps of the polymer chain growth occur. This work is expected to have broader scientific impact on the science and technology of organic electronics, and will also provide an interdisciplinary research experience for both undergraduate and graduate students. The educational activities being pursued include the integration of metal-based catalysis into required undergraduate laboratories. Videos of the lab development are being made available online to aid in adoption at other universities. In this project, Professor Noonan is developing new methods for the controlled polymerization of donor-acceptor building blocks. The incorporation of electron-accepting aromatic units into polymer materials has led to great improvements in organic solar cell devices, but variability in performance is often observed with these systems due to differences in polymer batches. The aim of this research is to utilize controlled polycondensation methods to polymerize highly functional aromatic building blocks. Precision synthesis incorporating these units into polymers will require advances in metal-ligand design, an understanding of how metals interact with the growing polymer chain and, insight into how different functional groups (i.e., ketones, esters, amides) can alter the chain-growth reaction. A library of monomers is being developed and explored with efforts towards enhanced mechanistic understanding of catalyst-transfer polycondensation and rational design of new acceptor systems amenable to this controlled polymerization approach.