Exceptional Alignment in a Donor-Acceptor Conjugated Polymer via a Previously Unobserved Liquid Crystal Mesophase

Orienting polymer semiconductors is desirable to optimize device characteristics, provide insight into microstructure, and magnify subtle phase behavior. Here, a combination of uniaxial strain and subsequent heating of the donor-acceptor (DA) polymer PBnDT-FTAZ is discovered to lead to exceptional optical dichroic ratios of up to 38 (and close to 50 near the polymer's absorption edge). This alignment is achieved due to the existence of a previously undetected thermotropic liquid crystal (LC) mesophase. The LC transition, not discernable through calorimetry, is uncovered through a combination of in situ UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray scattering, and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Comparing PBnDT-FTAZ to the non-fluorinated PBnDT-HTAZ and the homo polymer PBnDT, all of which show similar thermal transitions, reveals that exceptional alignment is only found in PBnDT-FTAZ. This is attributed to the PBnDT-FTAZ film having two distinct liquid crystal populations, and the polymer templating to a highly aligned, high-clearing temperature population when heated. The DMA thermal relaxation behavior observed here is also seen in other DA conjugated polymers suggesting that such thermotropic LC mesophases may be common in these materials. These findings demonstrate a polymer semiconductor with remarkable alignment and uncover phase behavior with broad implications for process-structure-property relationships in polymer semiconductors. Straining and heating the polymer semiconductor PBnDT-FTAZ yields remarkable in-plane alignment, thanks to a previously unobserved thermotropic liquid crystal mesophase. This discovery, made using a combination of alignment-assisted characterization techniques including in situ polarized UV-vis spectroscopy, X-ray scattering, and dynamic mechanical analysis, carries significant implications on polymer semiconductor process-structure-property relationships. image