Third polythiophenes

The structure/property relationships that govern third-order NLO polarization are not well understood. Like second-order effects, third-order effects seem to scale with the linear polarizability. As a result, most research to date has been on highly polarizable molecules and materials such as polyacetylene, polythiophene and various semiconductors. To optimize third- order NLO response, a quartic, anharmonic term must be introduced into the electronic potential of the material. However, an understanding of the relationship between chemical structure and quartic anharmonicity must also be developed. Tutorials by P. Prasad and D. Eaton discuss some of the issues relating to third-order NLO materials. 

Extensive ir-conjugation is also often associated with enhanced conductivity in organic systems (6). Polyacetylene and polythiophene which in the doped state exhibit very high electrical conductivity also exhibit relative large third-order nonlinear optical effects in... 

Conjugated polymers satisfy these requirements and have thus emerged as the most widely studied materials for their susceptability. Some of the examples of conjugated polymers, that have been studied for their third order NLO properties, are polydiacetylenes, poly-p-phenylenevinylenes and polythiophenes. However, CVD has only been used in the case of poly-p-phenylenevinylenes (PPV) [section 3.4], although values have not been reported. An excellent review of third order nonlinear optical properties of PPV in general, can be found in literature. Recently, McElvain et al. ° reported the values of CVD polyazomethines to be... 

For polypyrroles and polythiophenes, n is usually ca. 3 for optimal conductivity, ie. there is a positive charge on every third or fourth pyrrole or thiophene along the polymer chain, near which the dopant anion A is electrostatically attached. For polyanilines, the ratio of reduced (amine) and oxidised (imine) units in the polymer is given by the y/( 1 - y) ratio. The conducting emeraldine salt form of polyaniline has y = 0.5, i.e. there are equal numbers of imine and amine rings present. 

It must be noted that the values reported in the literature vary over broad ranges. Therefore, the values listed here reflect only the general behavior of several classes of compounds. It can be seen in Table 3.5 that trans-polyacetylenes (PAs) and polydiacetylenes (PDAs) exhibit the largest third-order NLO susceptibilities. The x value of cis-PA (not shown) is more than an order of magnitude smaller than that of trans-PA. Derivatives of poly-p-phenylene, poly(phenyl-ene vinylene), and polythiophene also exhibit NLO activity, but to a much lesser extent than PAs and PDAs. As pointed out above, polysilanes also possess quite large x values. This is explained by the cr-conjugation of the silicon chain, which implies a pronounced delocalization of cr-electrons. A very large x value... 

A third, non-catalytic approach to regioregular polythiophenes relies on the discovery by Andersson and co-workers that the oxidation of some monomers can be controlled giving high coupling selectivities. For example, phenyl-substituted thiophene monomers can be regiospecifically polymerized by a slow addition of FeCH that maintains a low concentration of radical throughout the reaction. Yields approaching 80 %... 

Third, the types of devices that can be assembled with polythiophenes are presented and the performance of prototypes that have been tested is discussed. Finally, the future of the field is discussed. 

For polypyrroles and polythiophenes, n is usually 3-4 for optimal conductivity ie, there is a positive charge on every third or fourth pyrrole or thiophene along the polymer chain, near which the dopant anion A is electrostatically attached. 

The third-order non-linear optical response of conjugated polymers, due to their highly conjugated structure, is being actively investigated particularly with polythiophenes [397]. These polymers present large and very fast non-linear optical responses. 

Cyclic voltammetry of the copolymer shows three anodic peaks, two matching the oxidation potentials of the parent homopolymers and a third which is intermediate. Authors attributed the data to the formation of blocks of polypyrrole and polythiophene cormected by blocks of random alternating groups of pyrrole and bithiophene. Increasing the amount of bithiophene in the copolymer produced a strong drop in the final conductivity of the materials, from 17 S cm at 1 mol% to I S cm at 14 mol%. 

---