Formal preparation of regioregular and alternating thiophene–thiophene copolymers bearing different substituents

• Atsunori Mori,
• Keisuke Fujita,
• Chihiro Kubota,
• Toyoko Suzuki,
• Kentaro Okano,
• Takuya Matsumoto,
• Takashi Nishino and
• Masaki Horie

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 317–324, doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.31

• a monomer. Nickel-catalyzed polymerization of bithiophene with substituents at the 3-position, including alkyl-, fluoroalkyl-, or oligosiloxane-containing groups, afforded the corresponding copolymers in good to excellent yield. The solubility test in organic solvents was performed to reveal that

• several copolymers showed a superior solubility. X-ray diffraction analysis of the thin film of the alternating copolymers composed of methyl and branched oligosiloxane substituents was also performed, and the results suggested the formation of a dual-layered film structure. Keywords: alternating

• copolymer; nickel(II) catalyst; oligosiloxane; regioregular polythiophene; solubility; Introduction Polythiophenes attract much attention in materials science because of their extended π-conjugation, which is applied for a wide range of electronic materials. In particular, the regioregular polymers with a