Conductive Polymers: Open‐Shell Donor–Acceptor Conjugated Polymers with High Electrical Conductivity (Adv. Funct. Mater. 24/2020)

Abstract

In article number 1909805, Jason D. Azoulay and co‐workers demonstrate the design and development of open‐shell conjugated polymers that are electrically conductive in their native “undoped” form. A comparative study of structural variants, processing methodologies, and morphological features demonstrate that the conductivity could be tuned over many orders of magnitude to achieve a record high for an undoped material of 8.18 S cm−1.

No More Conductance Decay: Toward Efficient Long-Range Transport in Molecular Wires

“…This stabilization is realized by steric protection which inhibits the intermolecular π–π and orbital interactions to facilitate charge transport . Although extending the π-conjugation in the molecules offers a stronger open shell character, narrower HL gap, and thermodynamic stabilization upon π-delocalization, the high reactivity limits the bottom-up synthetic approaches to surface-mediated syntheses under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. − Therefore, neutral yet air-stable radicals with high conductivity at long ranges is a long-standing interest for nanotechnology where device stability and substrate compatibility are crucial.…”