The Marriage of Metallacycle Transfer Chemistry with Suzuki-Miyaura Cross-Coupling To Give Main Group Element-Containing Conjugated Polymers

A versatile and general synthetic route for the synthesis of conjugated main group element-based polymers, previously inaccessible by conventional means, is reported. These polymers contain five-membered chalcogenophene rings based on S, Se, and Te, and we demonstrate that optoelectronic properties can be readily tuned via controlled atom substitution chemistry. In addition, regioregular hybrid thiophene selenophene tellurophene and selenophene fluorene copolymers were synthesized to provide a further illustration of the scope of the presented metallacycle transfer/cross-coupling polymerization method.