We
report the synthesis, morphology, and properties of poly(3-hexylthiophene)-block-poly(butyl acrylate) (P3HT-b-PBA)
for stretchable electronics applications, which are consisted of semiconducting
P3HT and low glass transistion temperature (T
g) PBA blocks. The P3HT-b-PBA thin films self-assembled
into fibrillar-like nanostructures and maintained the edge-on oreientation
even at a low P3HT composition, based on the results from atomic force
microscopy (AFM) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). By
varying the P3HT/PBA ratio, the tensile modulus decreased as the block
length of PBA increased, from 0.93 GPa for P3HT to 0.19 GPa for P3HT-b-PBA12k. The field effect transistor (FET) using
P3HT-b-PBA as the active layer exhibited a high p-type
mobility over 10–2 cm2 V–1 s–1, indicating its good charge transporting ability.
Furthermore, the P3HT-b-PBA6k based FET
under 100% strain had a high mobility of 2.5 × 10–2 cm2 V–1 s–1 with
an on/off ratio of 7.2 × 106, and it maintained over
10–2 cm2 V–1 s–1 for 1000 cycles, suggesting the promising stability
and reproducbility. The result demonstrated that the newly designed
conjugated rod–coil block copolymers could have potential applications
in stretchable electronic devices.
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