Continuous Droplet Flow Synthesis of a Near-Infrared Responsive Push–Pull Copolymer toward Large Scale Implementation of Organic Photodetectors
Omar Beckers, Sam Gielen, Frederik Verstraeten, Pieter Verstappen, Laurence Lutsen, Koen Vandewal, Wouter Maes
Abstract
Flow chemistry has been shown to be an excellent tool for the production of conjugated polymers. In some cases, however, this technique reaches its limits because of viscosity increases or precipitate formation. Droplet flow can provide an answer but has not been developed yet for the state-of-the-art push–pull conjugated polymers applied in many prototype organic electronic devices. In this work, a droplet flow protocol is established for a near-infrared photoactive [1,2,5]thiadiazolo[3,4-g]quinoxaline-based alternating copolymer, representing the first implementation of flow synthesis for organic photodetector materials. High-quality polymers are obtained with an enhanced consistency in molar mass, dispersity, and photodetector performance.