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Low Bandgap Conjugated Polymers Based on a Nature-Inspired Bay-Annulated Indigo (BAI) Acceptor as Stable Electrochromic Materials

2016; American Chemical Society; Volume: 4; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/acssuschemeng.6b00303

2168-0485

Bo He, Wei Teng Neo, Teresa L. Chen, Liana M. Klivansky, Hongxia Wang, Tianwei Tan, Simon J. Teat, Jianwei Xu, Yi Liu,

Transition Metal Oxide Nanomaterials

The donor–acceptor (D–A) approach, which is to incorporate alternating electron-rich (donor) and electron-deficient (acceptor) units along the conjugated polymer mainchain, has become an effective method to provide an informed search for high performance electrochromic low bandgap polymers. Herein a potent electron acceptor, namely, a much more soluble version of the nature-inspired bay-annulated indigo (BAI), was employed in the synthesis of two solution-processable donor–acceptor polymers for efficient electrochromic devices (ECDs). The devices fabricated from spin-coated polymer thin films can switch reversibly between deep blue and transmissive light green hues, with high optical contrasts in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) regions, good coloration efficiency and promising ambient stability. In particular, electrochromic devices based on the copolymer containing a carbazole donor unit exhibit optical contrasts of 41% and 59% in the visible and NIR regions, respectively, and a long-term stability of more than 7500 cycles under ambient conditions with limited reduction in optical contrasts. Such longer term ambient stability underlines the great potential of BAI-derived electron acceptors for the development of practical EC materials.