Conjugated polymers

A few weeks ago, I submitted an abstract for the Annual Research Conference held by the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Central Lancashire where I've started a PhD a few months ago. Because the research field I'm working on has quite a few interesting and exciting applications, and because I don't really have any new results yet, I will be presenting a general poster on conjugated polymers.

I first entitled it "Can we really make flexible/foldable flat screens and solar panels?" and tried to make a very general approach, because there aren’t many chemistry students here. However, my supervisor didn’t agree with the catchy title, because he said it was misleading for we aren’t going to build flat screens or solar panels. Well I might agree, but from the abstract I think it was pretty clear that we weren’t. Anyway, though I think the final abstract is a bit hard to chew for a general audience, even if scientific, or even for chemists I would like to share it with you:

Conjugated polymers for plastic optoelectronics

Traditionally, polymers have been used as insulators; however, in 1977, Shirakawa, MacDiarmid, and Heeger made a discovery that changed this conception. They discovered that doping of polyacetylene with electron-acceptor compounds greatly increased its electrical conductivity to levels comparable to that of metals. For this breakthrough, and the development of the field of conducting polymers, these scientists were awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry[1,2,3]. This opened the door to a new area called plastic electronics, which combines the optoelectronic properties of semiconductors with the mechanical properties of plastics[4]. A wide range of hi-tech applications are possible: light-emitting diodes for display technologies and solid state lighting, organic solar cells and transistors, memory modules and circuits, nanotechnologies, sensors, batteries and capacitors, bio-applications, etc.
Structural variations in such polymers and their functionalization allow the tuning of their electronic and photophysical properties. Synthesis of novel conjugated polymers and model oligomers, as well as studying how structure relates to electronic properties and functions are key points for the development of new materials and devices.
This project will be devoted to the design, synthesis, and study of novel pi-conjugated systems mainly based on fluorene- and thiophene-based conjugates. Academically, we will focus our research on understanding how the structure of synthesised materials affects on their electronic properties. Industrially we will look on the potential of their use in particular applications, mainly focusing of light-emitting diodes, transistors and photovoltaics.

[1] H. Shirakawa. Angew. Chem. 2001, 40:2574.
[2] A. G. MacDiarmid. Angew. Chem. 2001, 40:2581.
[3] A. J. Heeger. Angew. Chem. 2001, 40:2591.
[4] Conjugated Polymers. T. A. Skotheim and J. R. Reynolds, Eds. 3rd Ed. Vols. 1, 2. CRC Press: Boca Raton, 2007.