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Effect of polymerization conditions on physicochemical properties of gold-like lustrous films of organic solvent soluble 3-methoxythiophene oligomers

Polymer Journal volume 53, pages 1019–1029 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Solution-cast films of ClO4−-doped oligo(3-methoxythiophene) exhibit a luster similar to that of metallic gold; however, the effects of synthetic conditions on the physicochemical properties of the above oligomer and its films remain underexplored. To bridge this gap, this study examines how these properties are affected by (i) the time required to add the oxidant solution to the monomer solution (ta) and (ii) the polymerization time (tp) for oligomer synthesis, revealing that oligomer molecular weight, film conductivity, and the amount of edge-on lamellar crystallites increase with decreasing ta and/or increasing tp. Given that the crystallinity of edge-on lamellar structures, together with film surface roughness, strongly influences film specular reflectance, the obtained results are expected to facilitate the fabrication of conductive oligo(3-methoxythiophene) films with tunable color and metal-like luster for diverse applications.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20K05614. The authors thank the Center for Analytical Instrumentation of Chiba University for measurements of the specular reflection and 1H NMR spectra.

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  1. Department of Materials Science, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

    Minako Kubo, Hirotaka Doi, Ryota Saito, Kenta Horikoshi, Satoru Tsukada & Katsuyoshi Hoshino

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  1. Minako Kubo
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Correspondence to Katsuyoshi Hoshino.

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Kubo, M., Doi, H., Saito, R. et al. Effect of polymerization conditions on physicochemical properties of gold-like lustrous films of organic solvent soluble 3-methoxythiophene oligomers. Polym J 53, 1019–1029 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41428-021-00496-w

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