Design of novel tellurium and selenium containing semiconducting polymers using quantum mechanical tools

Abstract

Structural, optical and electronic properties of the two novel donor-acceptor-donor type conjugated polymers based on 4,7-di(selenophen-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]selenadiazole (SeSeSe) and 4,7-di(tellurophen-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]telluradiazole (TeTeTe) are investigated by means of quantum chemical calculations utilizing conventional and long-range corrected hybrid functionals. The lowest energy structures of the SeSeSe and TeTeTe monomers and oligomers are revealed through conformational analysis, while their electronic properties are obtained from density functional theory (DFT) molecular orbital calculations and optical properties are obtained from the time dependent DFT (TD-DFT) calculations for UV–vis absorption spectra. Electronic band gaps that directly affect the semiconducting properties of these novel polymers are calculated by using linear regression analysis of DFT data, and also periodic boundary conditions calculations (PBC-DFT). Our results indicate that SeSeSe and TeTeTe polymers have considerably lower band gap values than that of their furan-, thiophene-, benzooxadiazole- and benzothiadiazole-based analogs. The novel SeSeSe and TeTeTe polymers with improved optical and electronic properties may have an important role in the near future, especially for the optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications.