Photophysical properties of novel photostable helical polyfurans

The integration of furan based repeat units into conjugated systems meant for optoelectronic applications has generally been limited by the photostability of the furan unit. This limitation is due to the susceptibility of furan towards reaction with singlet oxygen, which disrupts the conjugation of the system. Here, we present a family of helical, ester-functionalized polyfurans with dramatically enhanced photostability. Within this family, the emission intensity of P3HEF is essentially non-existent while a chiral branched variant, (S)-P3EHEF, is highly fluorescent. This discrepancy is due to the difference in the compactness of the helical structure of the two polymers. Interestingly, the emission wavelength of (S)-P3EHEF can be tuned through several different techniques such as deposition speed and solvation conditions. The mechanism behind the tunability was explored using fluorescence-based techniques.