Universal Design and Efficient Synthesis for High Ambipolar Mobility Emissive Conjugated Polymers

High ambipolar mobility emissive conjugated polymers (HAME-CPs) are perfect candidates for organic optoelectronic devices, such as polymer light emitting transistors. However, due to intrinsic trade-off relationship between high ambipolar mobility and strong solid-state luminescence, the development of HAME-CPs suffers from high structural and synthetic complexity. Herein, a universal design principle and simple synthetic approach for HAME-CPs are developed. A series of simple non-fused polymers composed of charge transfer units, π bridges and emissive units are synthesized via a two-step microwave assisted C-H arylation and direct arylation polymerization protocol with high total yields up to 61 %. The synthetic protocol is verified valid among 7 monomers and 8 polymers. Most importantly, all 8 conjugated polymers have strong solid-state emission with high photoluminescence quantum yields up to 24 %. Furthermore, 4 polymers exhibit high ambipolar field effect mobility up to 10-2 cm2 V-1 s-1, and can be used in multifunctional optoelectronic devices. This work opens a new avenue for developing HAME-CPs by efficient synthesis and rational design.