Issue 12, 2023

A spectroscopic assessment of static and dynamic disorder in a film of a polythiophene with a planarized backbone

Abstract

The optoelectronic performance of organic semiconductor devices is related to the static and dynamic disorder in the film. The disorder can be assessed by considering the linewidth of its optical spectra. We focus on identifying the effect of conjugation length distribution on the static energetic disorder. Hence, we disentangle the contributions of static and dynamic disorder to the absorption and emission spectra of poly(3-(2,5-dioctylphenyl)-thiophene) (PDOPT) by exploring how the linewidth and energy of the spectra evolve upon cooling the sample from 300 K to 5 K. PDOPT has sterically hindered side chains that arrange such as to cause a planarized polymer backbone. This makes it a suitable model for a quasi-one-dimensional molecular system. By modelling the conjugated segments as coupled oscillators we find that the linewidth contribution resulting from the variation of conjugation length decreases linearly with decreasing exciton energy and extrapolates to zero at the energy corresponding to an infinite chain. These results provide a new avenue to the design of low disorder and hence high mobility polymeric semiconductors.

Graphical abstract: A spectroscopic assessment of static and dynamic disorder in a film of a polythiophene with a planarized backbone

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
08 Aug 2023
Accepted
05 Oct 2023
First published
09 Oct 2023
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Mater. Horiz., 2023,10, 5538-5546

A spectroscopic assessment of static and dynamic disorder in a film of a polythiophene with a planarized backbone

K. Schötz, F. Panzer, M. Sommer, H. Bässler and A. Köhler, Mater. Horiz., 2023, 10, 5538 DOI: 10.1039/D3MH01262J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements