Controlling the synthesis and microstructure of non-linear pi-conjugated semiconducting polymers

化学系的大分子、超分子和纳米化学项目获得了这一奖项，资助华盛顿大学的克里斯汀·卢斯康姆教授合成新型的柔性塑料电子产品或导电分子。这些材料目前被用来制造发光二极管，这些发光二极管被整合到手机和电视所用的彩色显示器中。太阳能电池的另一个重要应用是捕捉太阳能并将其转化为电能。由于导电有机聚合物具有柔性和重量轻的特点，因此可以用来制造新型的“可穿戴电子设备”。在未来，人们可以设想使用这些材料来组装人工神经或皮肤。为了实现这些和其他应用，化学家必须更好地控制这些分子结构。这一提议使人们能够创造以前没有合成过的分子结构，并允许探索它们的性质。该提案还允许通过西雅图太平洋科学中心的社区外联活动、科学咖啡馆(在当地酒吧举办的晚间系列讲座)以及针对代表性不足的少数群体和妇女的研究和辅导活动，与公众分享关于聚合物工作原理的知识。PI共轭半导体聚合物正在积极开发中，用于有机发光二极管和薄膜晶体管。此外，在过去的十年中，用于有机光伏(OPV)的PI共轭半导体聚合物的研究有了指数级的增长。然而，由于这些聚合物的合成受到控制的限制，与这类材料相关的研究大多集中在分子量分布较宽的线型聚合物上。虽然人们普遍认为，对于传统的绝缘盘状聚合物，聚合物的拓扑结构和结构对其性能有很大的影响，但关于刚性棒状聚合物的拓扑结构如何影响微结构，从而影响其光电性能的详细结构-性能关系一直是有限的。Luscombe团队正在使用他们的合成方法，通过控制臂长度和臂数来合成星形和接枝聚合物。利用这些星形和接枝聚合物，网络聚合物正在被创造出来。合成了具有完全相同属性但只有一个的模型聚合物，以便如何改变一个组分(例如，星形聚合物中的臂长度)会改变聚合物的微观结构，从而可以研究其光电性能。这项提议的总体目标是利用基团进行受控聚合的能力来合成半导体聚合物，合成具有以前从未合成过的独特结构的聚碘共轭聚合物，并建立这类材料的结构-性质关系的更完整的图景。

With this award, the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Chemistry Division is funding Professor Christine Luscombe at the University of Washington to synthesize new types of 'flexible plastic electronics' or molecules that are electrically conductive. These materials are currently used to produce light-emitting diodes which are incorporated into the color displays used in cell phones and televisions. Another important application is for solar cells to capture the sun's energy and convert it to electricity. Because they are flexible and lightweight, conducting organic polymers may be used to create novel 'wearable electronics'. In the future, one could envision using these materials to assemble artificial nerves or skin. To realize these and other applications, chemists must achieve better control over the structure of these molecules. This proposal enables the creation of molecular structures that have not been synthesized before and allows their properties to be explored. The proposal also allows the knowledge about how polymers work to be shared with the public through community outreach activities at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, the Science Café (an evening lecture series held at a local pub), and through research and mentoring activities for underrepresented minorities and for women. Pi-conjugated semiconducting polymers are actively under development for use in organic light-emitting diodes and thin-film transistors. Additionally, in the past decade, there has been an exponential growth in the research on pi-conjugated semiconducting polymers for applications in organic photovoltaics (OPVs). However, due to limitations in controlling the synthesis of these polymers, the majority of studies related to these classes of materials have focused on linear polymers with broad molecular weight distributions. While it is widely recognized that, for traditional insulating coiled polymers, the topology and architecture of the polymers greatly affect their properties, a detailed structure-property relationship for how the topology of rigid rod polymers such as pi-conjugated semiconducting polymers affects the microstructure and thus their optoelectronic properties has remained limited. The Luscombe group, using their synthetic methodology, is synthesizing star and graft polymers with control over arm length and arm number. Using these star and graft polymers, network polymers are being created. Model polymers with exactly the same attributes but one are synthesized so that how changing one component (eg. arm length in a star polymer) in the polymer alters microstructure and thus optoelectronic properties can be studied. The overarching goal of this proposal is to exploit the groups ability to perform controlled polymerizations for the synthesis of semiconducting polymers, synthesize pi-conjugated polymers with unique architectures that have not been synthesized before, and build a more complete picture for structure-property relationships in this class of materials.