Luminescent Conjugated Polymers for Energy Materials

为了以安全和环保的方式建立能源的产生、储存和使用，开发用于能源应用的新材料在国内和国际上都是至关重要的。共轭聚合物已经成功地应用于能源材料的几乎所有方面，结果令人振奋，但到目前为止，它们的效率和性能通常无法与竞争对手的技术相媲美。它们性能较差的原因通常可以追溯到它们的低发光效率，这导致大量能量作为废热损失。这在从光到电的转换(例如太阳能电池)或相反过程(例如发光设备)的应用中尤其明显。这项提议将提供两个新的材料平台，这两个平台将显著提高共轭聚合物的发光效率，无论是在整齐的薄膜中还是在共混物中，都大大提高了它们的性能，并使它们能够用于下一代能源材料应用。实现这一目标的两个主要策略将是：i)封装共轭聚合物主干，使其不能形成低能量非发射聚集物种；ii)创建具有窄的单态-三态能隙的聚合物，该聚合物可以通过反向系统间交叉将“暗”的三态转变为“亮的”单态。因此，通过精确的链间和能量操纵的结合，我们将消除共轭聚合物中的非辐射损失机制。然后，这些材料将被应用到各种能源应用中，如太阳能电池、发光二极管、发光晶体管和电池应用的传感器。此外，这些材料将在荧光成像、光动力学治疗、光催化和生物电子学等几乎所有共轭聚合物应用领域取得进展。这两个新的材料平台将在共轭聚合物设计领域带来基础性的科学进步，这将导致新一代高性能、低损耗的能量应用，其影响遍及所有存在光-物质相互作用的领域。

The development of new materials for energy applications is of utmost importance both nationally and internationally in order to establish energy generation, storage and usage in a secure and environmentally friendly manner.Conjugated polymers have been successfully applied to virtually all aspects of energy materials with promising results but so far their efficiency and performance has generally failed to match those of competing technologies. The origin of their poorer performance can generally be traced back to their low luminescence efficiencies which results in large amounts of energy being lost as waste heat. This is particularly evident in applications where there is a conversion from light to electricity (e.g. solar cells), or the reverse process (e.g. light emitting devices). This proposal will deliver two new materials platforms which will drastically enhance the luminescence efficiency of conjugated polymers, both in neat films and in blends substantially increasing their performance and allowing for them to be used in the next generation of energy materials applications.The two main strategies that will be employed to achieve this will be to i) encapsulate the conjugated polymer backbone such that low energy non-emissive aggregate species cannot form and ii) the creation of polymers with narrow singlet-triplet energy gaps which can convert 'dark' triplets into 'bright' singlets through reverse intersystem crossing. Therefore, through the combination of precise interchain and energetic manipulation we will eliminate non-radiative loss mechanisms in conjugated polymers. These materials will then be implemented into a wide variety of energy applications such as solar cells, light emitting diodes, light emitting transistors and sensors for battery applications. Additionally, these materials will allow for advancements in virtually all conjugated polymer applications such as fluorescence imaging, photodynamic therapy, photocatalysis and bioelectronics.These two new materials platforms will thus deliver fundamental scientific advances in the field of conjugated polymer design which will result in a new generation of high performance, low loss energy applications with ramifications throughout all fields where there is light-matter interaction.