Designing Organic Semiconducting Polymers
This presentation will discuss current understanding of the molecular design features responsible for optimizing the optical, electronic and microstructure properties of semiconducting polymers. A range of applications have been developed which employ organic semiconductors as the active layer for charge transport, light absorption and emission, as well as photocatalysis and bioelectronics. We will firstly take a close look at the molecular features responsible for the high charge carrier mobility of the indacenodithiophene-co-benzothiadiazole copolymer, a benchmark semiconducting polymer employed in organic transistors. This will involve highlighting the influence of conformational coplanarity and side-chain assisted self-assembly to create efficient one-dimensional transport along conjugated polymer backbones. Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have been shown to be promising devices for amplification of electrical signals and selective sensing of ions and biologically important molecules in an aqueous environment and thus have potential to be utilized in bioelectronic applications. The sensitivity, selectivity and intensity of the response of this device is determined by the organic semiconducting polymer employed as the active layer. We will discuss structure-property relationships required to optimize performance.
Bio: Iain McCulloch is the Director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University, as well as holding a visiting professor position in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford. He previously held joint appointments as professor of chemical science and director of KAUST Solar Center at KAUST, as well as a chair in polymer materials in the Chemistry Department at Imperial College. Before joining academia, he spent 18 years managing industrial research groups at Hoechst in the U.S. and Merck in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the European Academy of Sciences and a Member of Academia Europaea. He is the recipient of the 2026 Royal Society Hughes Medal for Energy, 2022 Royal Society Armourers and Brasiers Prize, the 2020 Blaise Pascal Medal for Materials Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry 2020 Interdisciplinary Prize, 2014 Tilden Medal for Advances in Chemistry and the 2009 Creativity in Industry Prize. His interests are in the design and investigation of organic semiconducting materials.