A new soluble neutral state black electrochromic copolymer via a donor–acceptor approach

By İçli, Merve; Pamuk, Melek; Algı, Fatih; Önal, Ahmet M. & Cihaner, Atilla
Published in Organic Electronics NULL 2010

Abstract

Two donor–acceptor systems, 2-decyl-4,7-bis(3,3-didecyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-thieno[3,4-b][1,4]dioxepin-6-yl)-2H-benzo[d][1,2,3]triazole (1) and 4,7-bis(3,3-didecyl-3,4-dihydro-2H-thieno[3,4-b][1,4]dioxepin-6-yl)-2,1,3-benzoselenadiazole (2) are explored in order to attain a low bandgap black polymer electrochrome, which is highly difficult to attain due to the complexity of designing such materials. Electrochemical polymerization of 1 and 2 in 1:4 monomer feed ratio was performed in a mixture of acetonitrile and dichloromethane solution containing 0.1 M tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate. It was found that electropolymerization provides a processable neutral state black copolymer, (P(1-co-2)), which absorbs virtually the whole visible spectrum (400–800 nm). (P(1-co-2)) is the first low bandgap (1.45 eV) electropolymerized material, which switches from black color (L = 14.3, a = 0.29, b = 0.35) in the neutral state to transmissive grey (L = 39.2, a = 0.29, b = 0.33) in the oxidized state with 15.3% of the transmittance change at 522 nm. Furthermore, it exhibits excellent operational and/or environmental stability under ambient conditions.

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