Interaction of biopolymers with organic electronic materials provides an appealing opportunity to design electroactive materials for use in many applications especially bioelectronics. Because of their biocompatibility, polypeptides facilitate easy interfacing of organic polymer semiconductors with biological systems. Polypeptides do not act just as simple bio- components; rather they effectively influence the organization of π-conjugated polymers into highly crystalline structures that allow charge transport.<br/>The first part of the talk will focus on poly(γ-benzyl-L-glutamate), PBLG, a synthetic polypeptide that forms thermoreversible tree-dimensional networks. Blends with poly(3-hexylthiophene), P3HT, resulted in gel materials able to switch reversibly on and off their photo-physical properties. This behavior was observed during two cycles of heating-cooling-aging. Enhanced alignment of P3HT chains was attributed to interactions between the PBLG benzyl side chains and P3HT hexyl arms.<br/>Lastly, the properties of drop-cast films processed from dispersions of poly(γ-stearyl-L-glutamate) tethered to silica dome particles and P3HT will be described. The rational choice of axial ratio along with solution and film processing enabled electroactive materials that showed up to six times increase in charge transport when compared to pristine P3HT. Such increase was associated with enhanced alignment and assembly of P3HT that was intermediated by interactions between the alkyl side chains of the two polymers.

Polypeptide-induced organization of semiconducting polymers into hybrid electroactive materials with enhanced photo-physical properties

255th National Meeting (2018)

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