Functional Oligothiophenes: Molecular Design for Multidimensional Nanoarchitectures and Their Applications

Abstract

Amaresh Mishra (right) received his Ph.D. degree in 2000 from the Sambalpur University, India, under the coguidance of Prof. G. B. Behera and Prof. R. K. Behera, working on dye-surfactant interactions in microheterogeneous media. He started his postdoctoral research career in 1999 at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and subsequently at the University of Akron, Ohio, working with Prof. G. R. Newkome, where he gained knowledge in the area of supramolecular and dendrimer chemistry. Later, he joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, in 2002 as a Visiting Fellow working with Prof. N. Periasamy, where he was involved in the synthesis and photophysical studies of organic light emitting materials. In 2005, he joined in the group of Prof. Peter Ba ¨uerle, University of Ulm, Germany, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. His present research interests are centered on chemistry of functional oligothiophenes, donor-acceptor-based conjugated dyes, and metal complexes toward applications in solar energy conversion and molecular electronic and photonic devices. Chang-Qi Ma (left) received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Beijing Normal University in 1998. In 2003 he obtained his Ph.D. degree at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing with Professor B.-W. Zhang. After that he was a postdoctoral research assistant at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, U.K., with Dr. G. Cooke, until he joined the research group of Prof. P. Ba ¨uerle at the University of Ulm in 2004 as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, where he is currently a research associate. His main research interests focus on the design and synthesis of novel π-conjugated organic materials for the application in organic electronics, e.g. organic solar cells.Peter Ba ¨uerle (center) received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from University of Stuttgart (Germany, 1985) working with Prof. F. Effenberger. After a postdoctoral year at MIT, Boston, Massachusetts, in the group of Prof. M. S. Wrighton, he carried out independent research at the University of Stuttgart and received his habilitation (1994). After being Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Wu ¨rzburg (Germany, 1994-95), he became Director of the Institute for Organic Chemistry II and Advanced Materials at the University of Ulm (Germany, since 1996). Current research interests of the group include development of novel organic semiconducting and conducting materials, in particular, conjugated poly-and oligothiophenes. Synthetic strategies and new reactions for their functionalization, structure-property relationships, self-assembling properties, and applications in electronic devices, in particular organic solar cells, are investigated. Results have been published in about 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 3 book chapters, and 7 patents. For his work in the field of plastic electronics he was awarded with the Rene ´Descartes Prize of the European Union (2000). Guest Professorships at the University of Osaka (Japan, 2002), U...

Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Thienylpyridazine Derivatives

“…spectra is detected when stronger donor groups are linked to the heterocyclic system. [11] Therefore, the substitution of thiophene (3) by pyrrole (4) or by N,N-dimethylamino-(5) groups in the thienyl-piridazine system results in bathochromic shifts (7-31 nm) in the UV-Vis. spectra due to the stronger electron-donating ability of pyrrole and N,N-dimethylamino-group compared to the thiophene heterocycle ( Figure 1, Table 1).…”

“…This type of molecules are highly targeted due to the easy tuning of the photophysical properties by small structural modifications. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The electronic arrangement of these compounds is based in an electron donor group linked to an electron acceptor group through a π-conjugated bridge, which leads to an efficient intramolecular charge transfer. Recent advances consists on the design of systems bearing heterocyclic π-bridges and/or the use of an electron rich or electron deficient heterocycle that acts as an adjuvant electron donor or acceptor group.…”

Twisting poly(3-substituted thiophene)s: cyclopolymerization of gemini thiophene monomers through catalyst-transfer polycondensation

“…11,12 Synthetic methodologies that produce well-defined P3XT structures have been developed in the past two decades and have contributed to the understanding of structure-property relationships. 13,14 The structural parameters regarding P3XT include regioregularity (head-to-tail selectivity), molecular weight and polydispersity, which are currently controllable because of recent advances in nickel catalyst-transfer polycondensation (CTP). [15][16][17][18][19][20] In this study, we focus our attention on another structural parameter, specifically the dihedral angle of the conjugated backbone, because it governs the effective conjugation length along the polymer chain.…”

Probing of chain conformations in conjugated polymer nanoparticles by electron spin resonance spectroscopy

“…[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Particle sizes as low as 8 nm have been reported frequently. 13 This raises the intriguing question of the polymer chain conformation in such particles.…”