Near 14 cm2 V-1 s-1 Charge Carrier Mobility Enabled by Amorphous Indacenodithiophene-based Polymers with Controlled Regioregularity

Herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of four regioregular, well-defined donor–acceptor polymers (P1, P2, P3, and P4), comprising different compositions of axisymmetric cyclopentadithiophene (CDT) and centrosymmetric indacenodithiophene (IDT) donors in conjugation with the asymmetric 5-fluoro-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole acceptor that is precisely oriented in the regular pattern along the backbone. Morphological analyses of the above polymer series show that exclusive CDT donor-containing P1 is semicrystalline, whereas the others (IDT donor-containing ones) are near-amorphous in nature. Comparatively, IDT donor-containing polymers have superior hole mobilities; in particular, exclusive IDT donor-containing polymer P4 offers an ultra-high mobility of 13.82 cm2 V− 1 s− 1 at a channel length of 200 µm, which is comparable to the recently reported values for state-of-the-art semicrystalline semiconductors. In addition, the near-amorphous characteristics render the IDT donor-containing polymer films highly ductile and stretchable. Such superior features, which are associated with excellent charge transport and ductility, demonstrate a promising possibility for application in viable stretchable electronics.