Tough, Semiconducting Polyethylene‐poly(3‐hexylthiophene) Diblock Copolymers

Semiconducting diblock copolymers of polyethylene (PE) and regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) are demonstrated to exhibit a rich phase behaviour, judicious use of which permitted us to fabricate field-effect transistors that show saturated charge carrier mobilities, ?FET, as high as 2 × 10-2 cm2V-1 s-1 and ON-OFF ratios, Ion/Ioff ?105 at contents of the insulating PE moiety as high as 90 wt %. In addition, the diblock copolymers display outstanding flexibility and toughness with elongations at break exceeding 600 % and true tensile strengths around 70 MPa, opening the path towards robust and truly flexible electronic components. © 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA