Backbone Engineering of Monodisperse Conjugated Polymers via Integrated Iterative Binomial Synthesis

Synthesis of sequence-defined monodisperse & pi;-conjugatedpolymerswith versatile backbones remains a substantial challenge. Here wereport the development of an integrated iterative binomial synthesis(IIBS) strategy to enable backbone engineering of conjugated polymerswith precisely controlled lengths and sequences as well as high molecularweights. The IIBS strategy capitalizes on the use of phenol as a surrogatefor aryl bromide and represents the merge between protecting-group-aidediterative synthesis (PAIS) and iterative binomial synthesis (IBS).Long and monodisperse conjugated polymers with diverse irregular backbones,which are inaccessible by conventional polymerizations, can be efficientlyprepared by IIBS. In addition, topology-dependent and chain-length-dependentproperties have been investigated.