A metathesis route to light harvesting polymers for organic solar cells

Abstract

Conjugated polymers (CPs), macromolecules consisting of alternating single and double bonds, are of tremendous interest to the scientific community considering their applications in field-effect transistors, light-emitting diodes, sensors, and organic photovoltaics (OPVs). OPVs are an area of particular interest because cost-effective solution processing techniques can be employed to prepare flexible large-area light harvesting devices. In addition, light absorption and charge transport characteristics may be tuned by synthetically altering the CP scaffold. This dissertation describes the synthesis of a variety of CPs prepared by acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) polymerization using versatile ruthenium-based Grubbs catalysts. All polymers were based on the low band gap poly(thienylene vinylene) (PTV) scaffold. The influence of polymer molecular weight, composition, and repeat unit architecture on both individual polymer behavior and OPV performance was investigated systematically.