Transient polymer electronics enabled by grafting of oligo-3-hexylthiophenes onto polycaprolactone

Abstract

One of the desirable properties of organic electronics materials, especially for their use in wearable and medical electronics, is transience, where the material undergoes controlled degradation into harmless byproducts after a predefined period of use. Conducting polymer-based materials have emerged as highly promising candidates for transient electronics, owing to their inherent versatility in chemical modification and synthesis. Here, we present an approach to achieve transience in polymer electronic materials featuring varying lengths of conductive oligo 3-hexylthiophene (O3HT) grafted, at different densities, onto a degradable polycaprolactone (PCL) backbone. The copolymers can be fabricated into flexible thin films that, upon doping, exhibit semiconducting properties with conductivities of up to 5.6 mS cm⁻¹. Notably, these copolymers demonstrate susceptibility to degradation in both acidic and alkaline environments and a limited degradation in an enzymatic solution. Moreover, their potential for integration into flexible electrochemical devices is promising, as demonstrated by their use in an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) device.