Metal-containing Conjugated Polymers

Conjugated polymers and oligomers are materials which exhibit a large range of interesting optical and electronic properties, including electrochromism, electronic conductivity and electroluminescence. Many efforts have been devoted towards synthesizing new conjugated polymers and oligomers in an effort to increase their processibility, optimize the desirable properties and explore new properties. Attaching metal groups results in hybrid materials, where the properties of both metal complex and conjugated backbone may be coupled. We are interested in the synthesis and characterization of new oligomers and polymers containing metals. Pendant metal centers may coordinate to polythiophenes in several coordination modes, and we have discovered an acid-base driven switch which affects the properties (conjugation, fluorescence) of these materials. Potential applications include solar energy harvesting and molecular transistors.