Synthetic Route to Conjugated Donor-Acceptor Polymer Brushes via Alternating Copolymerization of Bifunctional Monomers.

Alternating donor-acceptor conjugated polymers, widely investigated due to their applications in organic photovoltaics, are obtained mainly by cross-coupling reactions. Such a synthetic route exhibits limited efficiency and requires using, for example, toxic palladium catalysts. Furthermore, the coating process demands solubility of the macromolecules, provided by the introduction of alkyl side chains, which have an impact on the properties of the final material.