Liquid crystalline semiconducting polymers for organic field-effect transistor materials

Abstract

Conjugated polymers have been intensively investigated because they are widely applied in organic electronics such as organic field-effect transistor (OFET). One of adopted design strategies for these conjugated polymers is to attach long, linear or branched aliphatic chains onto the rigid aromatic backbone, and hence to render sufficient solubility for the resultant conjugated polymers. As a result, the chemical structure of the semiconducting conjugated polymers is very similar to that of a liquid crystalline mesogen. The mesomorphic phases of liquid crystalline conjugated polymers are of particular interest for understanding the self-assembly behavior and more importantly elucidating the relationship between conjugated polymer liquid crystalline properties and the transistor device performance. A comprehensive overview of the mesogenic properties as well as the OFET device performance of liquid crystalline conjugated polymers is hence summarized here to provide more insights into the structure property relationships for this unique type of organic electronics materials.