Staubitz Group

Research

Conducting Polymers

Since the ground breaking discovery of semi conducting polymers, by Heeger, MacDiarmid and Shirakawa (Nobel Prize in 2000), this area of macromolecular chemistry has received large interest, both from academia and industry. The major attraction of such materials is that often they can be processed relatively easily, are highly tuneable by chemical modification and are often comparatively cheap.

Applications for conductive polymers are abundant: Electroluminescent polymers, organic light emitting diodes, organic field effect transistors and plastic solar cells are just some examples.

Our group is developing new synthetic methodologies for the preparation of novel hybrid organic-inorganic semiconducting polymers. A very important aspect will also be the control of film morphologies to optimise device performance.

We are interested in accessing new monomers for cross-coupling polymerisation reactions. A very important aspect will also be the control of film morphologies to optimise device performance. Therefore, polymers with controlled regio regularities are required.