Controlling the nanoscale arrangement in polymer-fullerene organic solar cells is of paramount importance to boost the performance of such promising class of photovoltaic diodes. In this work, we use a pseudo-bilayer system made of poly(2,5-bis(3-hexadecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (PBTTT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), to acquire a more complete understanding ...

We have studied the evolution of the T1 triplet excited state in an extensive series of phenylene ethynylene polymers and monomers with platinum atoms in the polymer backbone and in an analogous series of all-organic polymers with the platinum~II! tributylphosphonium complex replaced by phenylene. The inclusion of platinum increases spin–orbit coupling so T1 state emission ~phosphorescence! is ...

Plastic electronics is a rapidly expanding topic, much of which has been focused on organic semiconductors. However, it is also of interest to find viable ways to integrate nanomaterials, such as silicon nanowires (SiNWs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), into this technology. Here, we present methods of fabrication of composite devices incorporating such nanostructured materials into an organic mat...

Polymer solar cells have been characterized during and after x-ray irradiation. The open circuit voltage, dark current and power conversion efficiency show degradation consistent with the generation of defect states in the polymer semiconductor. The polymer solar cell device remained functional with exposure to a considerable dose (500 krad (SiO(2))) and showed clear signs of recovery upon remo...

As a result of inherent rigidity of the conjugated macromolecular chains resulted from the delocalized π-electron system along the polymer backbone, it has been a huge challenge to make conducting polymer hydrogels elastic by far. Herein elastic and conductive polypyrrole hydrogels with only conducting polymer as the continuous phase have been simply synthesized in the indispensable conditions ...

One of the dream reactions in polymer chemistry is the bottom-up, self-assembled synthesis of polymer fabrics, with interwoven, one-dimensional fibres of monomolecular thickness forming planar pieces of textiles. We have made a major step towards realizing this goal by assembling sophisticated, quadritopic linkers into surface-mounted metal-organic frameworks. By sandwiching these quadritopic l...

Polymer-stabilized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were prepared and encoded with a range of surface-enhanced Raman reporter molecules. A range of as-synthesized polymers produced by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization were demonstrated to self-assemble at the surface of AuNPs dispersed in water. The method involved the coprecipitation of polymer-gold conjugates by...

One promising method to pattern full color polymer Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) displays is to print dye from a pre-patterned organic film onto a spin-cast polymer and then diffuse the dye into the film at room temperature in a solvent vapor environment. This method utilizes the well-known tendency for a polymer film to absorb solvent vapor, which depresses the glass transition temperatu...

Nano-structured copper oxides were successfully prepared through direct calcination of 1D ladderlike metal-organic framework [Cu2(btec)(2,2'-bipy)2]∞, (btec = 1,2,4,5-benzenetetracarboxylate and 2,2'-bipy = 2,2'-bipyridine) and porous coordination polymer [Cu(BDC)(bipy)](BDCH2), (BDC = 1,4-benzenedicarboxylate; bipy = 4,4'-bipyridine). The nano-structure of the as-synthesized samples are charac...

the difficult to handle and store zinc borohydride, zn(bh4)2, is stabilized by supporting it on polyvinylpyridine. this new mild, efficient, selective, and regenerable polymer supported borohydride reducing agent reduces a variety organic compounds such as, aldehydes, a-b-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, acid chlorides, epoxides, disulfides, as well as reductive acetylation of carbonyl compounds...