Hierarchical nanostructure control of nanohybrid materials based on electroactive rod-coil block copolymers and inorganic nanoparticles

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sabine Ludwigs
• Subject Area: Preparatory and Physical Chemistry of Polymers
• Term: from 2008 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 86566378

• Final Report Year: 2018

Final Report Abstract

In summary, my scientific career has strongly profited from the funding and support within the Emmy Noether Program of the German Science Foundation. Within the first two years of funding (beginning January 2009) I got a call for the professorship of Structure and Properties of Polymeric Materials which I accepted in November 2010. I had the key advantage that my young researchers’ group consisting of PhD students and a lab technician moved with me from the University of Freiburg to the University of Stuttgart and helped me to set up the laboratories in Stuttgart. Hierarchical nanostructure control of polymer and polymer-hybrid materials has become one of the major topics in my research group and as outlined in the original proposal this means synthesis, self-assembly / crystallization on the nanometer scale, top-down patterning and establishment of structure-property relationships. Especially in terms of structural control we have published numerous approaches to control and direct structure formation, e.g. via solvent-vapor annealing techniques. Furthermore, my group has now in-depth experience in the characterization of functional properties, including absorption and electrochemical behavior, measurements of electronic transport (field-effect transistors and four-point-probe measurements) as well as of organic solar cells.

Publications

• Design of Soluble Hyperbranched Polythiophenes with Tailor-made Optoelectronic Properties, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 30, 2009, 1323
  T.V. Richter, S. Link, R. Hanselmann, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.200900186)
• Nanocomposites of Size-tunable ZnO-nanoparticles and Amphiphilic Hyperbranched Polymers, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 30, 2009, 579
  T.V.Richter, F. Schüler, R. Thomann, R. Mülhaupt, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.200900051)
• Block Copolymer Micellar Nanoreactors for the Directed Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles, Macromol. Rapid Commun. 31, 2010, 729
  C.H. Braun, T.V. Richter, F. Schacher, A.H.E. Müller, E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.200900798)
• Soft-etch Mesoporous Hole-conducting Block Copolymer Templates, ACS Nano 4, 2010, 962
  E.J.W. Crossland, S. Scroggins, S. Moratti, O. Yurchenko, U. Steiner, M. Hillmyer, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/nn901447a)
• Synthesis and Thin Film Phase Behavior of Functional Rod-coil Block Copolymers Based on Poly(para Phenylene vinylene) and Poly(lactic Acid), Macromol. Rapid Commun. 32, 2011, 813
  C. H. Braun, B. Schöpf, C. Ngov, C. Brochon, G. Hadziioannou, E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/marc.201100012)
• Systematic Control of Nucleation Density in Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Thin Films, Adv. Funct. Mater. 21, 2011, 518
  E.J.W. Crossland, K. Rahimi, G. Reiter, U. Steiner, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201001682)
• Anisotropic Charge Transport in Spherulitic Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Films, Adv. Mater. 24, 2012, 839
  E.J.W. Crossland, K. Tremel, F. Fischer, K. Rahimi, G. Reiter, U. Steiner, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201104284)
• Directed Crystallization of Poly(3-hexylthiophene) in Micrometer Channels under Confinement and in Electric Fields, Nanoscale, 4, 2012, 2138
  F.S.U. Fischer, K. Tremel, M. Sommer, E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1039/c2nr12037b)
• Influence of Processing Solvents on Optical Properties and Morphology of a Semicrystalline Low Bandgap Polymer in the Neutral and Charged States, Macromolecules 46, 2013, 4924
  F.S.U. Fischer, K. Tremel, A.-K. Saur, S. Link, M. Brinkmann, J.T. López Navarrete, M.C. Ruiz Delgado, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/ma400939z)
• Microstructure and Optoelectronic Properties of P3HT-b-P4VP/PCBM Blends: Impact of PCBM on the Copolymer Self-Assembly, Macromolecules 46, 2013, 8824
  V. Gernigon, P. Lévêque, F. Richard, N. Leclerc, C. Brochon, C.H. Braun, S. Ludwigs, D.V. Anokhin, D.A. Ivanov, G. Hadziioannou, T. Heiser
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/ma4010692)
• Charge Transport Anisotropy in Highly Oriented Thin Films of the Acceptor Polymer P(NDI2OD-T2), Adv. Energy Mater. 2014, 1301659
  K. Tremel, F.S.U. Fischer, N. Kayunkid, R. Di Pietro, R. Tkachov, A. Kiriy, D. Neher, S. Ludwigs, M. Brinkmann
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201301659)
• Dithienosilole-Based All-Conjugated Block Copolymers Synthesized by a Combination of Quasi-Living Kumada and Negishi Catalyst-Transfer Polycondensations, Polym. Chem. 5, 2014, 5383
  T. Erdmann, J. Back, R. Tkachov, A. Ruff, B. Voit, S. Ludwigs, A. Kiriy
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1039/c4py00747f)
• Highly Crystalline Films of PCPDTBT with Branched Side Chains by Solvent Vapor Crystallization: Influence on Opto-Electronic Properties, Adv. Mater. 27, 2015, 1223
  F.S.U. Fischer, D. Trefz, J. Back, N. Kayunkid, B. Tornow, S. Albrecht, K.G. Yager, G. Singh, A. Karim, D. Neher, M. Brinkmann, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201403475)
• Light-Controlled Morphologies of Self-Assembled Triarylamine-Fullerene Conjugates, ACS Nano 9, 2015, 2760
  E. Busseron, J.-J. Cid, A. Wolf, G. Du, E. Moulin, G. Fuks, M. Maaloum, P. Polavarapu, A. Ruff, A.-K. Saur, S. Ludwigs, N. Giuseppone
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/nn506646m)
• Enhanced Stability of Rubrene against Oxidation by Partial and Complete Fluorination, J. Phys. Chem. C 120, 2016, 5515
  F. Anger, T. Breuer, A. Ruff, M. Klues, A. Gerlach, R. Scholz, S. Ludwigs, G. Witte, F. Schreiber
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b12293)
• Simultaneous Doping and Crosslinking of Polythiophene Films, Polymer Chemistry 8, 2017, 7351
  P. Reinold, K. Bruchlos, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1039/c7py01688c)
• Virus-Directed Formation of Electrocatalytically Active Nanoparticle-Based Co3O4 Tubes, Nanoscale 9(19), 2017, 6334
  A.S. Schenk, S. Eiben, M. Goll, L. Reith, A.N. Kulak, F.C. Meldrum, H. Jeske, C. Wege, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1039/c7nr00508c)
• Effect of the Type and Number of Organic Addends on Fullerene Acceptors for n-Type Electronic Devices: Redox Properties and Energy Levels, Chem. Select 3, 2018, 5778
  A. Ruff, X. Qian, K. Porfyrakis, S. Ludwigs
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/slct.201800837)
• Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Revisited - Influence of Film Deposition on the Electrochemical Behaviour and Energy Levels, Electrochim. Acta 269, 2018, 299
  K. Bruchlos, D. Trefz, A. Hamidi-Sakr, M. Brinkmann, J. Heinze, A. Ruff, S. Ludwig
  (See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electacta.2018.02.126)