How intermolecular geometrical disorder affects the molecular doping of donor–acceptor copolymers

Daniele Di Nuzzo, Claudio Fontanesi, Rebecca Jones, Sybille Allard, Ines Dumsch, Ullrich Scherf, Elizabeth von Hauff, Stefan Schumacher and Enrico Da Como ()
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Daniele Di Nuzzo: University of Bath
Claudio Fontanesi: University of Bath
Rebecca Jones: University of Bath
Sybille Allard: Macromolecular Chemistry Group and Institute for Polymer Technology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Ines Dumsch: Macromolecular Chemistry Group and Institute for Polymer Technology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Ullrich Scherf: Macromolecular Chemistry Group and Institute for Polymer Technology, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Elizabeth von Hauff: Physics of Energy, VU University Amsterdam
Stefan Schumacher: Universität Paderborn
Enrico Da Como: University of Bath

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Molecular doping of conjugated polymers represents an important strategy for improving organic electronic devices. However, the widely reported low efficiency of doping remains a crucial limitation to obtain high performance. Here we investigate how charge transfer between dopant and donor–acceptor copolymers is affected by the spatial arrangement of the dopant molecule with respect to the copolymer repeat unit. We p-dope a donor–acceptor copolymer and probe its charge-sensitive molecular vibrations in films by infrared spectroscopy. We find that, compared with a related homopolymer, a four times higher dopant/polymer molar ratio is needed to observe signatures of charges. By DFT methods, we simulate the vibrational spectra, moving the dopant along the copolymer backbone and finding that efficient charge transfer occurs only when the dopant is close to the donor moiety. Our results show that the donor–acceptor structure poses an obstacle to efficient doping, with the acceptor moiety being inactive for p-type doping.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7460

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