Organic semiconductors based on π-conjugated molecules have recently received great attention as future electronic materials due to their low cost, minimal toxicity, tunable properties, and flexibility.  Major advances in this field have been achieved through design, synthesis, and characterization of new conjugated materials.  Nonetheless, further improvements in materials properties and performance as well as the establishment of design guidelines remain necessary.  The development of concise and efficient synthetic methods is key to facilitating materials discovery efforts, with practical and more sustainable syntheses needed for the future large-scale industrial production.  In this talk, our recent progress in addressing the above challenges for photovoltaic polymers will be discussed.  The first part will focus on the development of controllable cross-coupling polymerization method to prepare π-conjugated polymers with predictable number-average molecular weights.  The effects of polymer molecular weight on photovoltaic performance and active layer morphology will be presented.  The second part will describe the development of environmentally benign polymerization reactions featuring direct functionalization of C–H bonds to access high-performance semiconducting materials.  Reactivity of the polymerization catalysts, selectivity of the C–H functionalizations, and their influence on polymer properties, extent of polymer defects, and device performance will be discussed.

Novel synthetic approaches for efficient semiconducting materials

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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