Incorporation of hydrogen‐bonding units into polymeric semiconductors toward boosting charge mobility, intrinsic stretchability, and self‐healing ability

Abstract

The soft nature has endowed conjugated polymers with promising applications in a wide range of field‐effect transistor (FET) based flexible electronics. With unremitting efforts on revealing the molecular structure–property relationships, numerous novel conjugated polymers with high mobility and excellent mechanical property have been developed in the past decades. Incorporating hydrogen‐bonding (H‐bonding) units into semiconducting polymers is one of the most successful strategies for designing high‐performance semiconducting materials. In this review, we aim to highlight the roles of H‐bonding units in the performances of polymeric FETs from three aspects. These include (i) charge mobility enhancement for semiconducting polymers after incorporation of H‐bonding units into the side chains, (ii) the effects of H‐bonding units on the stretchability of conjugated polymers, and (iii) the improvement of self‐healing properties of conjugated polymers containing dynamic hydrogen bonds due to the H‐bonding units in the side chains or conjugated backbones.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-based organic semiconductors: ring-closing synthesis and optoelectronic properties

“…The development of high-performance OFET devices is crucial for their applications in various fields. 102–104 For these three-terminal devices, the organic semiconductor layer is the key component affecting the performance of OFETs, which is responsible for the transport of charge carriers. According to the current understanding and recognition of the charge transport process and mechanism in organic semiconductor materials, larger transfer integrals and more efficient charge transport can be obtained with a large intrinsic conjugated structure and compact molecular packing mode in the aggregation state, which is beneficial for achieving high-performance OFET devices.…”

From stretchable and healable to self-healing semiconducting polymers: design and their TFT devices

“…1b). [23][24][25] The exceptionally successful building blocks that will be discussed in this review article have been exemplified by a range of different conjugated materials, including thiophene, diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP), and isoindigo (IDG) containing polymers. [26][27][28][29][30] Furthermore, to outweigh the extra complexity introduced in modifying the structural polymer, the simplicity of using a physical blending of conjugated polymers in an elastomeric matrix for TFTs has been exploited (Fig.…”

“…[19][20][21][22] Interestingly, the combination of dynamic H-bonds into organic semiconductors has brought out new property and function such as self-healing ability which will be explained in the Section 3. [23][24][25] 2.2.1 Block copolymer approach. Attaching soft and insulating segments into the conjugated backbone is a widely used approach to develop a new class of intrinsically stretchable semiconducting multiblock copolymer because the presence of the flexible insulating segment reduces the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the polymers and decrease the π-π stacking and crystallinity of polymer semiconductors in solid-state.…”

“…19–22 Interestingly, the combination of dynamic H-bonds in organic semiconductors has created new properties and functions such as self-healing ability which will be explained in Section 3. 23–25…”

Recent Structural Engineering of Polymer Semiconductors Incorporating Hydrogen Bonds

“…Among them, hydrogen bonds are the representative interactions because of their ubiquitous presence in nature. [ 45,46 ] Generally, the binding energy of chalcogen bond (S···F, S···O, etc.) is relatively weaker than hydrogen bonds, and it is often introduced into the molecular design accompanied with hydrogen bond to fine‐tune the structure and property of the materials.…”