Morphology changes in bulk donor–acceptor poly(benzodithiophene‐benzotriazole) after post‐treatment

The bulk order in donor–acceptor poly(benzodithiophene-benzotriazole) was improved by two different post-treatment procedures applied to the specimen. Two-dimensional wide-angle X-ray scattering was used to investigate the structural changes after treatment. After post-treatment the polymer turned into a highly crystalline morphology with well-resolved and intensive π-stacking reflections which were absent in the pristine sample. To understand the ordering mechanisms taking place during the two post-treatment procedures, structural parameters like coherence length and paracrystallinity were extracted from the X-ray data indicating the impact on crystallite size and cumulative lattice disorder. During temperature annealing the intralayer packing transforms from amorphous to highly ordered. On the other hand, solvent vapor annealing enhances in higher extent the interlayer organization due to interpenetration of solvent molecules between alkyl side chains. These results provide important insights for the morphology optimization of semicrystalline conjugated polymers. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016, 54, 2327–2334.

[1]  K. Müllen,et al.  Donor-Acceptor Polymers. , 2015, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[2]  C. Ober,et al.  Widely Tunable Morphologies in Block Copolymer Thin Films Through Solvent Vapor Annealing Using Mixtures of Selective Solvents , 2015, Advanced functional materials.

[3]  Thomas H. Epps,et al.  Writing Highly Ordered Macroscopic Patterns in Cylindrical Block Polymer Thin Films via Raster Solvent Vapor Annealing and Soft Shear. , 2015, ACS macro letters.

[4]  David Beljonne,et al.  Approaching disorder-free transport in high-mobility conjugated polymers , 2014, Nature.

[5]  Bumjoon J. Kim,et al.  High-Performance All-Polymer Solar Cells Based on Face-On Stacked Polymer Blends with Low Interfacial Tension. , 2014, ACS macro letters.

[6]  S. Izawa,et al.  All-Polymer Solar Cell with High Near-Infrared Response Based on a Naphthodithiophene Diimide (NDTI) Copolymer. , 2014, ACS macro letters.

[7]  Bin Sun,et al.  Record High Electron Mobility of 6.3 cm2V−1s−1 Achieved for Polymer Semiconductors Using a New Building Block , 2014, Advanced materials.

[8]  Y. Eichen,et al.  The Relation Between Molecular Packing or Morphology and Chemical Structure or Processing Conditions: the Effect on Electronic Properties , 2014 .

[9]  John R. Reynolds,et al.  25th Anniversary Article: High‐Mobility Hole and Electron Transport Conjugated Polymers: How Structure Defines Function , 2014, Advanced materials.

[10]  Wallace W. H. Wong,et al.  Benzotriazole-based donor–acceptor conjugated polymers with a broad absorption in the visible range , 2014 .

[11]  Zhenan Bao,et al.  Side Chain Engineering in Solution-Processable Conjugated Polymers , 2014 .

[12]  Martin Baumgarten,et al.  Designing pi-conjugated polymers for organic electronics , 2013 .

[13]  M. Toney,et al.  A general relationship between disorder, aggregation and charge transport in conjugated polymers. , 2013, Nature materials.

[14]  Soon-Ki Kwon,et al.  Record high hole mobility in polymer semiconductors via side-chain engineering. , 2013, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[15]  Peyman Servati,et al.  Solvent–vapor induced morphology reconstruction for efficient PCDTBT based polymer solar cells , 2013 .

[16]  K. Müllen,et al.  Solid-State Organization and Ambipolar Field-Effect Transistors of Benzothiadiazole-Cyclopentadithiophene Copolymer with Long Branched Alkyl Side Chains. , 2013, Polymers.

[17]  Wallace W. H. Wong,et al.  Electron deficient conjugated polymers based on benzotriazole , 2013 .

[18]  C. Hong,et al.  High‐performance amorphous donor–acceptor conjugated polymers containing x‐shaped anthracene‐based monomer and 2,5‐bis(2‐octyldodecyl)pyrrolo[3,4‐c]pyrrole‐1,4(2H,5H)‐dione for organic thin‐film transistors , 2012 .

[19]  C. B. Nielsen,et al.  Recent advances in high mobility donor-acceptor semiconducting polymers , 2012 .

[20]  Jean-Luc Brédas,et al.  Synthetic principles directing charge transport in low-band-gap dithienosilole-benzothiadiazole copolymers. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[21]  R. J. Kline,et al.  Quantitative analysis of lattice disorder and crystallite size in organic semiconductor thin films , 2011 .

[22]  H. Sirringhaus,et al.  High-performance electron-transporting polymers derived from a heteroaryl bis(trifluoroborate). , 2011, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[23]  Kai Sun,et al.  Solvent‐Annealed Crystalline Squaraine: PC70BM (1:6) Solar Cells , 2011 .

[24]  Antonio Facchetti,et al.  π-Conjugated Polymers for Organic Electronics and Photovoltaic Cell Applications† , 2011 .

[25]  R. J. Kline,et al.  Structural Origin of Gap States in Semicrystalline Polymers and the Implications for Charge Transport , 2010, 1012.2240.

[26]  Alberto Salleo,et al.  Indacenodithiophene semiconducting polymers for high-performance, air-stable transistors. , 2010, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[27]  K. Shimizu,et al.  Perpendicular Orientation of Cylindrical Microdomains in Extruded Triblock Copolymer , 2010 .

[28]  Ligui Li,et al.  Precise construction of PCBM aggregates for polymer solar cells via multi-step controlled solvent vapor annealing , 2010 .

[29]  T. Kowalewski,et al.  Highly disordered polymer field effect transistors: N-alkyl dithieno[3,2-b:2',3'-d]pyrrole-based copolymers with surprisingly high charge carrier mobilities. , 2008, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[30]  S. Mannsfeld,et al.  Microstructure of Oligofluorene Asymmetric Derivatives in Organic Thin Film Transistors , 2008 .

[31]  Jenny Nelson,et al.  Morphology evolution via self-organization and lateral and vertical diffusion in polymer:fullerene solar cell blends. , 2008, Nature materials.

[32]  D. Balzar,et al.  Size–strain line-broadening analysis of the ceria round-robin sample , 2004 .

[33]  P. Scardi,et al.  Line broadening analysis using integral breadth methods: a critical review , 2004 .

[34]  A. Heeger,et al.  Diffraction Line-Shape Analysis of Poly(3-dodecylthiophene): A Study of Layer Disorder through the Liquid Crystalline Polymer Transition , 1999 .