Alternating 5,5-Dimethylcyclopentadiene and Diketopyrrolopyrrole Copolymer Prepared at Room Temperature for High Performance Organic Thin-Film Transistors

Fei, Zhuping; Chen, Lei; Han, Yang; Gann, Eliot; Chesman, Anthony S. R.; McNeill, Christopher R.; Anthopoulos, Thomas D.; Heeney, Martin; Pietrangelo, Agostino

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

2017

We report that the inclusion of nonaromatic 5,5-dimethylcyclopentadiene monomer into a conjugated backbone is an attractive strategy to high performance semiconducting polymers. The use of this monomer enables a room temperature Suzuki copolymerization with a diketopyrrolopyrrole comonomer to afford a highly soluble, high molecular weight material. The resulting low band gap polymer exhibits excellent photo and thermal stability, and despite a large π–π stacking distance of 4.26 Å, it demonstrates excellent performance in thin-film transistor devices.