TY  - JOUR
A1  - Liu, W.
A1  - Tkachov, R.
A1  - Komber, H.
A1  - Senkovskyy, V.
A1  - Schubert, M.
A1  - Wei, Z.
A1  - Facchetti, A.
A1  - Neher, Dieter
A1  - Kiriy, A.
T1  - Chain-growth polycondensation of perylene diimide-based copolymers: a new route to regio-regular perylene diimide-based acceptors for all-polymer solar cells and n-type transistors
T2  - Polymer Chemistry
N2  - Herein, we report the chain-growth tin-free room temperature polymerization method to synthesize n-type perylene diimide-dithiophene-based conjugated polymers (PPDIT2s) suitable for solar cell and transistor applications. The palladium/electron-rich tri-tert-butylphosphine catalyst is effective to enable the chain-growth polymerization of anion-radical monomer Br-TPDIT-Br/Zn to PPDIT2 with a molecular weight up to M-w approximate to 50 kg mol(-1) and moderate polydispersity. This is the second example of the polymerization of unusual anion-radical aromatic complexes formed in a reaction of active Zn and electron-deficient diimide-based aryl halides. As such, the discovered polymerization method is not a specific reactivity feature of the naphthalene-diimide derivatives but is rather a general polymerization tool. This is an important finding, given the significantly higher maximum external quantum efficiency that can be reached with PDI-based copolymers (32-45%) in all-polymer solar cells compared to NDI-based materials (15-30%). Our studies revealed that PPDIT2 synthesized by the new method and the previously published polymer prepared by step-growth Stille polycondensation show similar electron mobility and all-polymer solar cell performance. At the same time, the polymerization reported herein has several technological advantages as it proceeds relatively fast at room temperature and does not involve toxic tin-based compounds. Because several chain-growth polymerization reactions are well-suited for the preparation of well-defined multi-functional polymer architectures, the next target is to explore the utility of the discovered polymerization in the synthesis of end-functionalized polymers and block copolymers. Such materials would be helpful to improve the nanoscale morphology of polymer blends in all-polymer solar cells.
Y1  - 2014
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/38295
SN  - 1759-9954
SN  - 1759-9962
VL  - 5
IS  - 10
SP  - 3404
EP  - 3411
PB  - Royal Society of Chemistry
CY  - Cambridge
ER  -