How intermolecular geometrical disorder affects the molecular doping of donor-acceptor copolymers

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Daniele Di Nuzzo - , University of Bath (Author)
  • Claudio Fontanesi - , University of Bath, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Author)
  • Rebecca Jones - , University of Bath (Author)
  • Sybille Allard - , University of Wuppertal (Author)
  • Ines Dumsch - , University of Wuppertal (Author)
  • Ullrich Scherf - , University of Wuppertal (Author)
  • Elizabeth Von Hauff - , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU) (Author)
  • Stefan Schumacher - , Paderborn University, University of Arizona (Author)
  • Enrico Da Como - , University of Bath (Author)

Abstract

Molecular doping of conjugated polymers represents an important strategy for improving organic electronic devices. However, the widely reported low efficiency of doping remains a crucial limitation to obtain high performance. Here we investigate how charge transfer between dopant and donor-acceptor copolymers is affected by the spatial arrangement of the dopant molecule with respect to the copolymer repeat unit. We p-dope a donor-acceptor copolymer and probe its charge-sensitive molecular vibrations in films by infrared spectroscopy. We find that, compared with a related homopolymer, a four times higher dopant/polymer molar ratio is needed to observe signatures of charges. By DFT methods, we simulate the vibrational spectra, moving the dopant along the copolymer backbone and finding that efficient charge transfer occurs only when the dopant is close to the donor moiety. Our results show that the donor-acceptor structure poses an obstacle to efficient doping, with the acceptor moiety being inactive for p-type doping.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number6460
JournalNature communications
Volume6
Publication statusPublished - 10 Mar 2015
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-6269-0540/work/172082556