Fluorinated Polyphenylenevinylene (PPV) Block Co-Polymers for Nanophotonics

摘要

Polymer based optoelectronic materials and thin film devices exhibit great potential in future space applications due to their flexibility, light weight, large light absorption coefficient, and promising radiation tolerance in space environment as compared to their inorganic semiconductor counterparts. Since carbon-fluorine (C-F) chemical bonds are much stronger than the carbon-hydrogen (C-H) bonds, fluorinated polymer films offer great potential for space applications due their expected resistance to oxidation, thermal stability, excellent wear properties, and low coefficients of friction. Their use in a space environment is extremely attractive since they are expected to retain their lubricating characteristics in vacuum, unlike many solid lubricants. Current existing polymer photovoltaic materials and devices suffer low photoelectric power conversion efficiencies due to a number factors including poor morphologies at nano scale that hinder the charge separation and transport. This paper reports our recent work on a fluorinated DBfA type block copolymer system where the donor (D) block contains a donor substituted and hydrocarbon based polyphenylenevinylene (PPV), acceptor (fA) block contains a fluorinated and a sulfone acceptor substituted polyphenylenevinylene (f-PPV), and B is a non-conjugated and flexible bridge unit. Preliminary studies reveal DBfA exhibits better nano phase morphologies and over 100 times more efficient optoelectronic conversion efficiencies as compared to D/fA blend.