Backbone Engineering of Polythiophenes via Quinoid and Cyano Dual Functionalization for n-Type Polymers

Developing high-performance n-type polymer semiconductors is hindered by the scarcity of strong electron-deficient building blocks. Herein, we report a dual-functionalization strategy that integrates both quinoid and cyano groups into polythiophene backbones to construct n-type polymers. Two new polymers, PQTTCN and PQTVTCN, were synthesized via the Stille copolymerization of a thienoquinoid-based dibrominated monomer (TTD2T-Br) with cyano-functionalized bithiophene and thienylene-vinylene-thienylene distannyl monomers, respectively. Electrochemical and computational analyses confirm that both polymers exhibit low-lying LUMO levels of −4.07 eV and highly planar backbones. In organic field-effect transistors, PQTTCN and PQTVTCN show unipolar n-type charge transport, with electron mobilities of 0.036 and 0.002 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively, which are attributed to their deep frontier molecular orbitals and planar conformations. Upon doping, both polymers exhibit n-type thermoelectric performance, achieving an electrical conductivity and power factor values of 0.16 S cm−1 and 0.75 μW m−1 K−2 for PQTTCN and 0.043 S cm−1 and 0.17 μW m−1 K−2 for PQTVTCN, respectively. AFM and GIWAXS results demonstrate that PQTTCN has better dopant compatibility and higher crystallinity than PQTVTCN. This work highlights that the combination of quinoid and cyano units offers a promising strategy for developing high-performance n-type polymer semiconductors for organic electronics.