Professor Inhwan Lee’s research team at our university has successfully developed a new synthetic method that allows for flexible design of the structure of semiconducting polymer materials. This advancement enables faster production of polymers used in electronic devices and is expected to contribute significantly to the development of next-generation organic semiconductors.

Professor Lee revealed that through a “Multicomponent Polymerization (MCP)” technique, which reacts three different monomers simultaneously, they have developed a technology that precisely controls the sequence inside semiconducting polymers and efficiently implements various structures.

This research was published in the July issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition under the title “Versatile Halide-Pair-Driven Multicomponent Polymerization for Library Synthesis of Sequence-Controlled Semiconducting Dendronized Polymers.” The paper received excellent reviews and was selected as a “Very Important Paper (VIP).”

The study involved doctoral student Hae-nam Choi (right in the photo) from the Department of Energy Systems at Ajou University as the first author. Co-authors included Soo-min Go (Master’s graduate, Ajou University), Se-min Son (Integrated Master’s and PhD program, Ajou University), Ji-su Woo (Master’s student, UNIST Department of Energy Chemical Engineering), Hyun-woo Park (PhD student, ETH Zurich Department of Materials), and Dong-jun Lee (Graduate of integrated Master’s and PhD program, Ajou University).

Professors Tae-rim Choi (ETH Zurich, Materials), Won-jin Kwak (UNIST, Energy Chemical Engineering), and Hwan-myung Kim (Ajou University, Energy Systems) participated as co-authors, and Professor Inhwan Lee (Ajou University, Department of Chemistry) served as the corresponding author.

Poly(triarylamine) (PTAA) polymers are used in various organic electronic devices such as organic light-emitting devices, perovskite solar cells, electrochromic devices, flexible electronics, and battery electrodes. PTAA is especially notable as a hole transport material in perovskite solar cells. However, traditional synthesis of poly(triarylamine) polymers involved complicated multi-step synthesis and purification of reaction intermediates, which posed challenges for commercialization and cost efficiency. The core of this research lies in presenting a new polymerization strategy that precisely controls the polymer sequence by designing the reaction order of three readily available monomers mixed together in a single step.

The research team successfully synthesized a library of semiconducting poly(triarylamine) polymers where arylamine and two types of aryl dihalide monomers are connected in a predetermined sequence. They also expanded this strategy to synthesize complex dendronized polymers, greatly broadening the structural diversity of polymers. As a result, poly(triarylamine) polymers and their derivatives used in electronic devices can now be rapidly produced in library form, which is expected to greatly accelerate the development of next-generation organic semiconductors.

Professor Inhwan Lee said, “Through this research, we have enabled the cheap and diverse synthesis of expensive polymers in a single reaction step. We also expect this to contribute to improving the performance of organic electronic devices.”

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Mid-career Researcher Support Program, the G-LAMP program, the Carbon to X technology development project for producing useful substances, and the Leading Research Center (MRC) program.

Image showing the synthesis process of sequence-controlled semiconducting polymers via sequential C–N coupling reactions