Conjugated polymers with interchain aromaticity

INTERCHAIN aims to develop and investigate a ground-breaking new molecular design concept for conjugated polymers.

The concept is expected to enable the occurrence of stacked-ring aromaticity between polymer chains, drastically advancing our fundamental understanding of stacked-ring aromaticity and introducing a route to exploit this effect for the development of conjugated polymers with excellent charge transport properties.For conjugated polymers with excellent charge transport properties, strong intermolecular interactions are needed, which is difficult to achieve without compromising processability.

However, as an emerging class of organic molecules, conjugated macrocycles provide an exciting playing field for the discovery of effects and properties that cannot usually be achieved.

In contrast to other molecules, conjugated macrocycles can sustain global aromatic or antiaromatic ring currents, offering exciting prospects to enhance the properties of conjugated materials by enabling exceptionally strong intermolecular interactions.

If the macrocycles used are antiaromatic, the interactions between two macrocycles can even result in stacked-ring aromaticity.

Integrated into the backbone of conjugated polymers, such macrocycles may enable interchain stacked-ring aromaticity and interchain π‐electron delocalisation, in addition to intrachain π‐electron delocalisation.

However, the inherent instability of the required antiaromatic molecules poses a tremendous challenge for the investigation of stacked-ring aromaticity and prevents the development of polymers that exploit this effect.INTERCHAIN proposes a ground-breaking new molecular design concept that overcomes this challenge by eliminating the need for antiaromatic molecules to achieve stacked-ring aromaticity.

The project will drastically advance our fundamental understanding of stacked-ring aromaticity, but it will also yield highly stable conjugated polymers with excellent properties for applications.