Integrated electrochromic and electrofluorochromic properties from polyaniline-like polymers with triphenylacrylonitrile as side groups. (20th July 2022) - Yang, Shengchen
Highlights: Highly luminescent polymers were obtained by introducing a typical aggregation-induced emission (AIE) side group triphenylacrylonitrile with polyaniline backbones. The polymers demonstrate highly-performed integrated electrochromic and electrofluorochromic properties. The polymers exhibit fast switching speed, large fluorescent on/off contrast, and high cycle stability. Reasonable control of polymer energy band gap along with AIE-featured geometry leads to both satisfactory electrochemical activity and luminescent capacity. Abstract: Recent years have witnessed rapid developments in electrochromic/ electrofluorochromic (EC/EFC) materials. Though highly efficient ECs have been realized in a lot of systems, the synchronous EFC performance is still severely limited by the low luminescent efficiency (Φ f ) and slow response. In this work, we designed and synthesized conjugated polymers PDTEC and PTEC, which are composed of polyaniline-like main chains and triphenylacrylonitrile (TPAN) side chains. Both polymers exhibit remarkable color changes between yellow, orange and blue, and fluorescent on/off switchings upon applied potentials. Notably, especially high Φ f (44.2%), fluorescent contrast (Ion/off =4339) and fast response (0.18s) are simultaneously accomplished, which is rarely found in EFC materials due to the difficulty in balancing both electrochemical activity and luminescent capacity in polymers. Such fascinating comprehensive EC/EFC performance will render these polymers promising candidates for versatile applications in smart optical devices and biosensors. Graphical abstract: Image, graphical abstract