Conjugated polymers offer a wide range of prospective applications in organic optoelectronics. To take advantage of their beneficial properties, most reported conjugated polymers use long alkyl side chains to render them soluble in organic solvents to enable solution-based processing and synthesis of high molecular weight polymers. This approach, however, brings a range of disadvantages. These include poor photostability and an inability to fabricate multilayer materials using all solvent-based processing techniques. In response to these shortcomings of the prevailing design paradigm of conjugated polymers, our group has developed a range of thiophene-based conjugated polymers that include photocleavable nitrobenzyl linkers between the conjugated backbone and the solubilizing chains. Irradiation of these polymers with ultraviolet light cleaves the alkyl chains, rendering the polymers insoluble. These polymers therefore behave as negative photoresists, allowing photopatterning and stacking of multiple layers of different polymers. When the polymeric photoproduct is sufficiently hydrophilic, the result is a dual-tone photoresist, which behaves as either a positive-tone or negative-tone resist depending on the developer used after irradiation, and allows for increasingly complex film topologies. Overall, these polymers open the door to new avenues to combining functional polymers with the unique advantages that photochemistry presents, such as spatiotemporal precision and easily controllable dosing.

Photopatterning conjugated polymers with cleavable solubilizing alkyl chains

2019 Spring National Meeting

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