Correlation of Disorder and Charge Transport in a Range of Indacenodithiophene‐Based Semiconducting Polymers

• Published in: Advanced electronic materials Vol. 4; no. 10
• Main Authors: Nikolka, Mark, Hurhangee, Michael, Sadhanala, Aditya, Chen, Hu, McCulloch, Iain, Sirringhaus, Henning
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.10.2018
• Subjects: charge transport; disorder; field‐effect transistors; organic electronics
• ISSN: 2199-160X; 2199-160X
• DOI: 10.1002/aelm.201700410

Over the past 25 years, various design motifs have emerged for the development of organic semiconductors for demanding applications in flexible organic light emitting diode display backplanes or even printed organic logic. Due to their large area uniformity paired with high charge carrier mobilities, conjugated polymers have attracted increasing attention in this respect. However, the performances delivered by current generation conjugated polymers still fall short of many industrial requirements demanding devices with ideal transistor characteristics and higher mobilities. The discovery of conjugated polymers with low energetic disorder, such as the indacenodithiophene‐based polymer indacenodithiophene‐co‐benzothiadiazole, represent an exciting opportunity to breach this chasm if these materials can be further optimized while maintaining their low disorder. Here, it is shown how both the charge transport properties as well as the energetic disorder are affected by tuning the molecular structure of a large range of indacenodithiophene‐based semiconducting polymer derivatives. This study allows to understand better the interplay between molecular design and structure of the polymer backbone and the degree of energetic disorder that governs the charge transport properties in thin polymer films. Here the mechanism by which both the charge transport properties and the energetic disorder of conjugated polymers are affected by tuning the molecular structure of a large range of indacenodithiophene‐based semiconducting polymer derivatives. This study aims to better understand the interplay between molecular design and structure of the polymer backbone and the degree of energetic disorder that governs the charge transport properties in thin polymer films.