Assisted alignment of conjugated polymers in floating film transfer method using polymer blend

Abstract

Orientating conjugated polymers (CPs) in thin films is an attractive technique for obtaining anisotropic properties, resulting in improved device performances. Template-assisted alignment using pre-patterned substrates has been widely used to orient various polymers irrespective of their orientation capability. In this work, we report that using the floating film transfer method, the orientation of guest polymers can be in-situ assisted via blending with a host polymer during film fabrication. Dichroic Ratio (DR) of two guest CPs such as poly[2,5-(2-octyldodecyl)-3,6-diketopyrrolopyrrole-alt-5,5-(2,5-di(thien-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene)] and poly(9,9-di-n-octylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl) were found to be enhanced when blended with host polymer poly(3,3‴-didodecyl-quaterthiophene) (PQT). DR of the host PQT decreases monotonically with an increase in the guest polymer proportion, suggesting that guest polymers are well mixed in the host matrix. The electronic absorption spectra and atomic force microscopy results revealed that blended polymers were well mixed without any phase separation. DR of the guest polymers in the blend was the same even when the overall blend concentration was increased twice to increase the overall film thickness.