Thiophene based conjugated polymers for optoelectronic applications: Polymer light-emitting diodes, polymer solar cells and optical limiters

In the last three decades, conjugated polymers have attracted much attention as active materials for optoelectronic applications, such as PLEDs, field-effect transistors, photovoltaic cells, optical switching devices, data storage devices etc. However, design and synthesis of π-conjugated polymers with low oxidation potential, broad absorption spectrum, low band gap, efficient photoinduced charge transfer and separation, and ambipolar charge transport with high mobilities, effective π-electron delocalization are crucial for the fabrication of the devices. In particular, tuning of the HOMO/LUMO energy levels of these polymers is of great importance for directing material properties towards the desired applications. A deeper understanding of structure-property relationship would help in designing new organic conjugated molecules by the judicious choice of functional substituents, and thus to tune their optical properties for applications in optoelectronic devices. In this context a series of donor-acceptor conjugated polymers are designed and are synthesized in this work. These polymers with good material properties are potential candidates for optoelectronic device applications.