Sulfonation of conducting polymers and oled, photovoltaic, and ESD devices

Abstract

Conducting polymer systems for hole injection or transport layer applications including a composition comprising: a water soluble or water dispersible regioregular polythiophene comprising (i) at least one organic substituent, and (ii) at least one sulfonate substituent comprising sulfonate sulfur bonding directly to the polythiophene backbone. The polythiophene can be water soluble, water dispersible, or water swellable. They can be self-doped. The organic substituent can be an alkoxy substituent, or an alkyl substituent. OLED, PLED, SMOLED, PV, and ESD applications can be used.

Description

[0001] Cross References to Related Applications [0002] This application is based on and claims priority to US Provisional Application Serial Nos. 60 / 832,095 and 60 / 845,172, filed July 21, 2006, and September 18, 2006, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. [0003] Government funding [0004] This invention was made with support under DAAD 19-02-3-001 awarded by the Government Army Research Institute. Accordingly, the Government has certain rights in this patent. technical field Background technique [0005] Despite great breakthroughs in organic-based energy-efficient devices such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs), and organic optoelectronic devices (OPVs), further improvements are still needed to provide better processing and performance. For example, one potential material is a conductive polymer including, for example, polythiophene and regioregular polythiophene, which was first discovered b...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0008] However, existing technologies often suffer from important limitations such as doping instability, lack of solubility in starting polymers, lack of formulation versatility, lack of control over solvents, limited fusion systems, random sulfonation, lack of copolymerizability , lack of control over molecular weight, lack of control over structure and stereoregularity, lack of interactions between side groups and conjugated chains, and lack of device data

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