Synthetic approaches towards structurally-defined electrochemically and (photo)redox-active polymer architectures

Abstract

Electrochemically active polymers are widely used in (opto)electronic applications, e.g. organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), solar cells or other light harvesting devices. In this regard, the progress in controlled polymerization techniques opens new possibilities to construct covalently linked polymer architectures, e.g. block copolymers or graft copolymers, from defined building blocks. These architectures represent promising candidates for application in (opto)electronic devices as they allow control of the morphology through self-assembly processes and, furthermore, are capable of mimicking fundamental processes for directional charge transport or light harvesting. This review details synthetic approaches to prepare functional redox-active and conjugated homopolymers as well as the construction of covalently linked well-defined architectures thereof, e.g. block copolymers, graft copolymers or chain end functionalized assemblies.