Intramolecular donor–acceptor conjugated copolymers exhibit alternating electron donating groups (electron rich segments) and electron acceptors (electron deficient segments) in their back bone. Their potential applications in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells have revolutionized their synthetic development. Engineering the band gap by incorporating distinct aromatic components in these polymers plays an important role in improving power conversion efficiencies of solar cells. This work reports on the synthesis of donor-acceptor based copolymers employing benzothiadaizole as an acceptor and hexylthiophene and heptyloxyphenylene as donors. Donor-acceptor containing monomers were prepared and polymerized via Acyclic Diene Metathesis (ADMET) as well as Suzuki polymerization affording polymers featuring alternating blocks. Preliminary measurements have revealed that the polymers exhibit broad absorption ranges from ~300nm to ~550nm with high extinction coefficients. The structures of the precursors, monomers and the polymers were confirmed by <sup>1</sup>H, <sup>13</sup>C and 2-D NMR spectroscopy. The effect of the structure on the band gap was studied by cyclic voltammetry. The opto-electronic properties were studied by UV-vis and Fluorescence spectroscopy. Further studies will involve the synthesis of similar systems varying the donors and testing the resulting systems for electrochemical studies and photovoltaic applications.

Synthesis of donor-acceptor conjugated copolymers via acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) and Suzuki polycondensation (SPC)

249th National Meeting (2015)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.