Luminescent Conjugated Polymers for Energy Materials

开发新的能源应用材料对于国内和国际来说都是至关重要的，以便以安全和环境友好的方式建立能源生产，储存和使用。共轭聚合物已成功地应用于能源材料的几乎所有方面，并取得了可喜的成果，但迄今为止，它们的效率和性能通常无法与竞争技术相匹配。其较差性能的起源通常可以追溯到其低发光效率，这导致大量能量作为废热损失。这在存在从光到电的转换（例如太阳能电池）或相反过程（例如发光器件）的应用中特别明显。该提案将提供两种新的材料平台，这将大大提高共轭聚合物的发光效率，在纯膜和共混物中均显著提高了它们的性能，并允许它们用于下一代能源材料应用。不能形成发射聚集体物质，和ii）产生具有窄的单重态-三重态能隙的聚合物，其可以通过反向系间交叉将“暗”三重态转化为“亮”单重态。因此，通过精确的链间和能量操纵的组合，我们将消除共轭聚合物中的非辐射损失机制。这些材料随后将被应用于各种能源应用，如太阳能电池、发光二极管、发光晶体管和电池应用传感器。此外，这两种新材料平台将推动几乎所有共轭聚合物应用的发展，如荧光成像、光动力治疗、生物电子学和生物电子学。因此，这两种新材料平台将在共轭聚合物设计领域带来基础科学进步，从而产生新一代高性能材料。低损耗能量应用，其分支遍及存在光-物质相互作用的所有领域。

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.