Conjugated polymers have garnered great interest for use in organic electronic and optical devices, due in part to the ability to fine-tune their physical properties. Inexpensive and straightforward synthesis of such materials is desirable, though traditional laboratory preparation and purification often proves to be tedious. Electropolymerization offers a quick, essentially reagent-free, and easily scalable alternative to these methods. In this work, heterocyclic building blocks comprised of benzothiadiazole (BTD) with two furan (BTDF2) or thiophene (BTDT2) subunits were polymerized to form both p-type and n-type 1:1 copolymers. The fluorescence emission spectra and Raman spectra were obtained in order to characterize their optical properties. The fluorescence emission peaks of the building blocks and their copolymers were observed to be broad and extend into the NIR region. Simulated Raman spectra generated using the Gaussian 09 software package with the B3LYP method and the 6-311+G(d,p) basis set were compared to experimentally obtained spectra of BTDF2 and BTDT2. The experimental Raman spectra of the individual units were also compared to the spectra of the copolymers. The results indicate that electropolymerization was successful in creating the desired products.

Spectroscopic and computational analysis of benzothiadiazole (BTD) building blocks and their copolymers

2019 Spring National Meeting

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