A novel carbon−sulfur (C2S) analogue of polyacene has been synthesized and characterized. The polymer is composed of a nondegenerate trans−cisoid polyacetylene backbone in which all hydrogen atoms are replaced with sulfur atoms to form thiophene rings that are fused into a linear cross-conjugated ladder-type structure. The newly developed synthetic route of the ladder-type polymer is based on an intramolecular condensation of a prepolymer consisting of 3-(alkane-1-sulfinyl)thiophen-2,5-diyl units in triflic acid. The geometric and band electronic structure of the ladder-type polymer were calculated and analyzed at the PM5 level of theory. The fused ring structure imposes strong quinonoid-type character to the originally benzenoid polyene backbone, which destabilizes the HOMO and stabilizes the LUMO and thus reduces the band gap. The shift of absorption and emission maxima to longer wavelengths responding to lower π−π* transition energies than those of polythiophene and the smaller gap between electrochemical p- and n-doping potentials are consistent with the reduction of the band gap. The microstructure of the isolated oligomers in their neutral, singly oixidzed, and doubly oxidized states were computed for short and intermediate chain length. Various energetic and structural aspects of the convergence behavior from the properties of small cations or dications to those of an isolated polaronic or bipolaronic defects on a sufficiently long chain were monitored and are discussed. The geometric structures of the p-doped ladder-type polymer in the form of either polaron or bipolaron were calculated by adopting suitable boundary conditions to represent charged unit cells. The geometry relaxation process for the charged ladder-type backbone induces the appearance of a stronger quinonoidic character than that in the case of polythiophene, which suggests that the fused rings more easily adopt quinonoid forms than thiophene rings. Calculated energetic aspects of the doping behavior and the paramagnetic resonance spectra of p-doped polymers revealed that the ladder-type polymer possesses polaron as the prevailing charged species, in contrast to many other π-conjugated polymers where bipolaron is the lowest-energy charge storage configuration.

By the density-functional-derived tight-binding method, the electronic transport properties of two types of benzothiophene-based molecular wires, i.e., the linear and helical molecular wires have been investigated. In the molecular bridge system where these molecules are connected to the gold electrodes by S–Au bonds, the transmission peaks are found to lie at the energies somewhat lower than 0.5 eV below the Fermi level for both cases. Thus the conductances of both types of wires for the bias voltage less than 1.0 V are not so large without doping. Upon iodine doping, however, the new transmission peaks are found to appear around the Fermi level, particularly in the case of helical wires. It means that the conductances of the helical wires are expected to be improved dramatically by the chemical doping. Therefore, the doped helical molecular wires are predicted to work as molecular solenoids even under lower bias voltages. Next, the applicability of the current-induced magnetic field generated in such a molecular solenoid is considered. As an example, we propose a novel helical molecule where the hydrogen atoms connected to the inner C–C bonds of the helix are substituted by some kind of radicals. In this case the current-induced field can control the alignment of the radical spin orientations.

A novel helical aromatic polymer comprised of fused benzothiophene rings, poly(thiaheterohelicene), was synthesized via an intramolecular ring-closing reaction with a controlled helicity to one-sided bias. The synthetic helicity control involved the induction of the helical conformation and its fixation. The ladder polymer showed both an extended pi-conjugation and planarity and a very stiff helical structure. [structure: see text]

Helical polymers and macromolecules have precisely ordered stereostructures, and their potential applications include chiral separation and sensing based on molecular recognition and liquid crystalline formation by molecular ordering. Among them, π-conjugated polymers with a helical structure have often exhibited unique electro-and magnetoresponsibilies. In this review, we describe the helical π-conjugated macromolecules as electro-and magneto-responsible materials including our recent studies. In Chapter 2, the recent studies of helical polymeric molecules with π-conjugated structures are reviewed. We focus on "helicene" derivatives, which consist of fused-benzene and/or thiophene rings, in Chapter 3 and summarize their syntheses, characteristics, and optical properties based on the stiff structures and molecular ordering. Helical ladder polymers, "poly(thiaheterohelicene)s" comprised of fused-benzothiophene rings, are discussed in Chapter 4 among their stiff helical structure and π-conjugation. The combined functions of electro-and magnetoproperties of the chiral polymer are described using the example of poly(thiaheterohelicene)s, such as electron transmission along the helical main-chain and a molecule model of a molecular solenoid, in the final section.

Poly(3-chiral methylsulfinyl-1,2-phenyleneoxide) was synthesized, and the regioselective intramolecular ring-closing of the pendant sulfoxide on the polymer formed the corresponding helical ladder structure comprising of a fused phenoxathiine ring. The CD of the ladder polymer gave a Cotton effect which was caused by the chirality of the pendant group.