Integrating charge mobility, stability and stretchability within conjugated polymer films for stretchable multifunctional sensors

Sung Yun Son, Giwon Lee, Hongyu Wang, Stephanie Samson, Qingshan Wei (), Yong Zhu () and Wei You ()
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Sung Yun Son: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Giwon Lee: North Carolina State University
Hongyu Wang: North Carolina State University
Stephanie Samson: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Qingshan Wei: North Carolina State University
Yong Zhu: North Carolina State University
Wei You: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Conjugated polymers (CPs) are promising semiconductors for intrinsically stretchable electronic devices. Ideally, such CPs should exhibit high charge mobility, excellent stability, and high stretchability. However, converging all these desirable properties in CPs has not been achieved via molecular design and/or device engineering. This work details the design, synthesis and characterization of a random polythiophene (RP-T50) containing ~50 mol% of thiophene units with a thermocleavable tertiary ester side chain and ~50 mol% of unsubstituted thiophene units, which, upon thermocleavage of alkyl chains, shows significant improvement of charge mobility and stability. Thermal annealing a RP-T50 film coated on a stretchable polydimethylsiloxane substrate spontaneously generates wrinkling in the polymer film, which effectively enhances the stretchability of the polymer film. The wrinkled RP-T50-based stretchable sensors can effectively detect humidity, ethanol, temperature and light even under 50% uniaxial and 30% biaxial strains. Our discoveries offer new design rationale of strategically applying CPs to intrinsically stretchable electronic systems.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30361-0

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