THE SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF AMPHIPHILIC α,α'-DISUBSTITUTED OLIGOTHIOPHENES

Most of these compounds are insoluble, due to the strong, secondary interchain interactions between their highly anisotropic, rigid polymer backbones, however, many attempts have been made to enhance their solubility and performance either by introducing either various substituents/end groups into the polymer backbone or by copolymerizing them with conjugated or non-conjugated comonomers. It is well known that the microphase separation between the blocky segments of the coil-coil block copolymers leads to a highly ordered, periodic structure of lamellar, columnar or spherical domains on the nanometer level, depending on the volume fraction of the individual block components. Interesting results have been obtained by the incorporation of these conjugated, rod-like block segments into a heterogeneous polymer chain. Stupp et al. synthesized block copolymers with rodlike segments by a combination of self-assembly and chemical reactions in chiral monomers which generate a series of supramolecular nanostructures. 14 Rod-coil block