Replacing Alkyl with Oligo(ethylene glycol) as Side Chains of Conjugated Polymers for Close π-π Stacking

We synthesize and systematically study a series of conjugated polymers with oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) or alkyl chain as the side chain and poly[2,7-fluorene-alt-5,5-(4,7-di-2-thienyl-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] as the polymer backbone. Replacing alkyl chain with OEG chain can decrease the pi-pi stacking distance of polymer backbone in thin film from 0.44 to 0.41 nm because OEG chain is more flexible than alkyl chain. As the result, the conjugated polymer with OEG side chain exhibits higher hole mobility, red-shifted absorption spectrum in thin film and smaller bandgap than those of the conjugated polymer with alkyl side chain. With the increase of the length of OEG side chain, the resulting conjugated polymers exhibit unchanged pi-pi stacking distance and decreased hole mobility. Moreover, owing to the large polarity of OEG chain, OEG side chain makes the conjugated polymer suitable for polymer solar cell (PSC) devices processed with polar nonhalogenated solvent, methoxybenzene. A power conversion efficiency of 4.04% is demonstrated with the resulting PSC devices. This work provides the new insight into the effect of OEG side chain on conjugated polymer, which can be used in the molecular design of novel conjugated polymer materials with excellent optoelectronic device performance.