1. Surface-initiated n-type semiconducting polymer synthesis
Christine K. Luscombe
Materials Science and Engineering Department
University of Washington, Seattle
Surface-initiated polymerization offer an alternative method to control the architecture of polymers. The new architectures developed for semiconducting polymers can lead to new properties being observed in optoelectronic devices. The first year of the project focused on creating a semiconducting polymer using a step-wise process, which can be tedious and time-consuming. In the second year, the focus was shifted towards developing a living polymerization method which allows for the creation of a surface attached polymer in a more controlled precise way. The work focused on two areas:
(i) the effect of initiators on the polymerizations;
(ii) the effect of ligand on the polymerizations.
We expect that the work will lead to opportunities beyond surface-initiated polymerizations, allowing us to obtain polymer architectures which have not been created before for semiconducting polymers.