High-Performance Furan-Containing Conjugated Polymer for Environmentally Benign Solution Processing.

Developing semiconducting polymers that exhibit both strong charge transport capability via highly ordered structures and good processability in environmentally benign solvents remains a challenge. Given that furan-based materials have better solubility in various solvents than analogous thiophene-based materials, we have synthesized and characterized furanyl-diketopyrrolopyrrole polymer (PFDPPTT-Si) together with its thienyl-diketopyrrolopyrrole-based analogue (PTDPPTT-Si) to understand subtle changes induced by the use of furan instead of thiophene units. PTDPPTT-Si films processed in common chlorinated solvent exhibit a higher hole mobility (3.57 cm2 V-1 s-1) than PFDPPTT-Si films (2.40 cm2 V-1 s-1) under the same conditions; this greater hole mobility is a result of tightly aggregated π-stacking structures in PTDPPTT-Si. By contrast, because of its enhanced solubility, PFDPPTT-Si using chlorine-free solution processing results in a device with higher mobility (as high as 1.87 cm2 V-1 s-1) compared to that of the corresponding device fabricated using PTDPPTT-Si. This mobility of 1.87 cm2 V-1 s-1 represents the highest performances among furan-containing polymers reported to the best of our knowledge for nonchlorinated solvents. Our study demonstrates an important step toward environmentally compatible electronics, and we expect the results of our study to reinvigorate the furan-containing semiconductors field.