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Kim J, Lee K, Kim S, Sohn BH. Orientation and stretching of supracolloidal chains of diblock copolymer micelles by spin-coating process. NANOSCALE 2024; 16:10377-10387. [PMID: 38739015 DOI: 10.1039/d4nr00663a] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2024]
Abstract
Supracolloidal chains consisting of nano- or micro-scale particles exhibit anisotropic properties not observed in individual particles. The orientation of the chains is necessary to manifest such characteristics on a macroscopic scale. In this study, we demonstrate the orientation of supracolloidal chains composed of nano-scale micelles of a diblock copolymer through spin-coating. We observed separate chains coated on a substrate with electron microscopy, and analyzed the orientation and stretching of the chains quantitatively with image analysis software. In drop-casting, the chains were coated randomly with no preferred orientation, and the degree of stretching exhibited an intrinsic semi-flexible nature. In contrast, spin-coated chains were aligned in the radial direction, and the apparent persistence length of the chain increased, confirming the stretching of the chain quantitatively. Furthermore, by incorporating fluorophores into supracolloidal chains and confirming the oriented chains with confocal fluorescence microscopy, it is demonstrated that oriented chains can be utilized as a template to align functional materials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jaemin Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
| | - Kyunghyeon Lee
- Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
| | - Sangyoon Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
| | - Byeong-Hyeok Sohn
- Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea.
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Sabury S, Xu Z, Saiev S, Davies D, Österholm AM, Rinehart JM, Mirhosseini M, Tong B, Kim S, Correa-Baena JP, Coropceanu V, Jurchescu OD, Brédas JL, Diao Y, Reynolds JR. Non-covalent planarizing interactions yield highly ordered and thermotropic liquid crystalline conjugated polymers. MATERIALS HORIZONS 2024. [PMID: 38686501 DOI: 10.1039/d3mh01974h] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/02/2024]
Abstract
Controlling the multi-level assembly and morphological properties of conjugated polymers through structural manipulation has contributed significantly to the advancement of organic electronics. In this work, a redox active conjugated polymer, TPT-TT, composed of alternating 1,4-(2-thienyl)-2,5-dialkoxyphenylene (TPT) and thienothiophene (TT) units is reported with non-covalent intramolecular S⋯O and S⋯H-C interactions that induce controlled main-chain planarity and solid-state order. As confirmed by density functional theory (DFT) calculations, these intramolecular interactions influence the main chain conformation, promoting backbone planarization, while still allowing dihedral rotations at higher kinetic energies (higher temperature), and give rise to temperature-dependent aggregation properties. Thermotropic liquid crystalline (LC) behavior is confirmed by cross-polarized optical microscopy (CPOM) and closely correlated with multiple thermal transitions observed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). This LC behavior allows us to develop and utilize a thermal annealing treatment that results in thin films with notable long-range order, as shown by grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). Specifically, we identified a first LC phase, ranging from 218 °C to 107 °C, as a nematic phase featuring preferential face-on π-π stacking and edge-on lamellar stacking exhibiting a large extent of disorder and broad orientation distribution. A second LC phase is observed from 107 °C to 48 °C, as a smectic A phase featuring sharp, highly ordered out-of-plane lamellar stacking features and sharp tilted backbone stacking peaks, while the structure of a third LC phase with a transition at 48 °C remains unclear, but resembles that of the solid state at ambient temperature. Furthermore, the significance of thermal annealing is evident in the ∼3-fold enhancement of the electrical conductivity of ferric tosylate-doped annealed films reaching 55 S cm-1. More importantly, thermally annealed TPT-TT films exhibit both a narrow distribution of charge-carrier mobilities (1.4 ± 0.1) × 10-2 cm2 V-1 s-1 along with a remarkable device yield of 100% in an organic field-effect transistor (OFET) configuration. This molecular design approach to obtain highly ordered conjugated polymers in the solid state affords a deeper understanding of how intramolecular interactions and repeat-unit symmetry impact liquid crystallinity, solution aggregation, solution to solid-state transformation, solid-state morphology, and ultimately device applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sina Sabury
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Tech Polymer Network, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
| | - Zhuang Xu
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 600 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
| | - Shamil Saiev
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0041, USA
| | - Daniel Davies
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 600 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
| | - Anna M Österholm
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Tech Polymer Network, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
| | - Joshua M Rinehart
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Tech Polymer Network, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
| | - Motahhare Mirhosseini
- Department of Physics and Center for Functional Materials, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA
| | - Benedict Tong
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Tech Polymer Network, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
| | - Sanggyun Kim
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
| | - Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA
| | - Veaceslav Coropceanu
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0041, USA
| | - Oana D Jurchescu
- Department of Physics and Center for Functional Materials, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA
| | - Jean-Luc Brédas
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0041, USA
| | - Ying Diao
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Department of Chemistry, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 600 S. Mathews Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
| | - John R Reynolds
- School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, Georgia Tech Polymer Network, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
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Sugiura S, Mitogawa T, Saito K, Tamura R, Tsukada S, Horiuchi T, Hoshino K. Slippage- and load-induced changes in the crystalline orientation of oligo(3-methoxythiophene) powder to develop a gold-tone luster. RSC Adv 2022; 12:19965-19973. [PMID: 35865194 PMCID: PMC9264330 DOI: 10.1039/d2ra03538c] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Accepted: 07/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The achievement of molecular orientation control by rubbing and pressing poly(3-alkylthiophene)s is a powerful technique to improve the performance of organic electronic devices. We report here that the rubbing and pressing of blackish-brown 3-methoxythiophene oligomer powders yield layer and tablet samples with gold tones, respectively. Specular reflectivity, colorimetric, and X-ray diffraction measurements reveal that this gold tone is caused by an increase in the ratio of edge-on lamellar crystallites to face-on ones, which is promoted by rubbing/pressing. In contrast to the 3-alkylthiophene polymer, which develops a dominant face-on lamellar structure, rubbing of the 3-methoxythiophene oligomer increases the relative amount of edge-on lamellar crystallites to face-on lamellar ones. Furthermore, gold tone development in the tablet samples is limited to the near-surface area, despite the fact that pressure is also applied to the tablet bulk. These specific chemical events are explained by considering the repulsive interactions between the 3-methoxythiophene backbone and the functional groups on the surface of the substrate employed during the rubbing/pressing processes. Despite the lower applied pressure, gold tone development by rubbing is accompanied by a higher reflective property than by pressing because of the formation of larger relative amounts and sizes of edge-on lamellar crystallites, which are responsible for the gold tone. Rubbing and pressing of blackish-brown 3-methoxythiophene powder produced layers and tablets with gold tone luster, respectively, due to increased edge-on lamellar crystallites.![]()
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Affiliation(s)
- Satoya Sugiura
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Terumasa Mitogawa
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Kota Saito
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Rihito Tamura
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Satoru Tsukada
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Takahiko Horiuchi
- Department of Imaging Sciences, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
| | - Katsuyoshi Hoshino
- Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University 1-33 Yayoi-cho, Inage-ku Chiba 263-8522 Japan
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