PLPL-1658
Conjugated Polyelectrolytes for Emerging Technologies
Topic
PL. Plenary Lectures
When and Where
Sep 29, 2026
14:00 - 14:40
Room 205 (Summit Hall)
Session Chairs
Seung Hyun KIM
Presenter(s)
Thuc-Quyen Nguyen (University of California Santa Barbara)
Co-Author(s)
Abstract
The discovery of electrical conductivity in doped polyacetylene in 1977 by Hideki Shirakawa, Alan J. Heeger, and Alan G. MacDiarmid established conjugated polymers as a new class of electronic materials and fundamentally changed the perception that polymers must be electrical insulators. This seminal work, recognized by the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, initiated a field that has evolved from understanding charge transport in highly doped polymers to the molecular engineering of semiconducting polymers for emerging electronic and optoelectronic technologies. Over the past five decades, conjugated polymers have progressed through several transformative stages. Early research focused on controlling doping, conductivity, and charge transport in materials such as polyacetylene, polyaniline, polypyrrole, polyphenylene vinylene, and polythiophene. The development of more chemically stable and processable conjugated polymers subsequently enabled solution-based fabrication of thin films and devices. Conjugated polymers can be synthesized to have band gaps from the UV to the near infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Conjugated polymers are attractive due to their unique properties: light weight, mechanical flexibility, low cost, low-temperature processing, and simple fabrication methods such as roll-to-roll coating, spray coating or ink-jet printing into desired size and shape. This evolution led to semiconducting polymers with tunable bandgaps, energy levels, solubility, molecular packing, and charge transport for lightweight, flexible, and solution-processable organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic field-effect and electrochemical transistors (OFETs and OECTs), thermoelectrics, organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic photodetectors (OPDs), and bioelectronics.
In this talk, I will discuss the molecular design, processing, and fundamental understanding of water-soluble conjugated polymers (aka. conjugated polyelectrolytes, CPEs) with particular emphasis on establishing the relationship between structure-property-performance relationships. CPEs have attracted attention for their ability to combine the optoelectronic properties of conjugated polymers with the ionic conductivity and aqueous solubility of polyelectrolytes. These materials offer significant sustainable processing advantages, as the presence of hydrophilic side groups imparts solubility in environmentally benign solvents like water and alcohols, enabling straightforward fabrication and compatibility with multilayer device architectures. CPEs have been used as charge transporting layers in OLEDs, OFETs, OPVs, and OPDs and as active materials in OECTs. In these devices, performance emerges from the interplay between molecular design, intermolecular interactions, film formation, nanoscale organization, interfaces, and the dynamics of charge injection, transport, or extraction. Specifically, I will discuss the development of CPEs and how chemical structures (conjugated backbone, ionic group, counter ion, and molecular weight) and processing protocols can be used to tune the optical, electronic and ionic charge transport, mechanical property and performance in OECTs, biosensors, organic photodetectors, and 3D printing. A combination of characterization methods such as solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), GIWAXS, AFM, photoconductive AFM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and impedance spectroscopy are employed to gain insight into the material properties and device performance.
In this talk, I will discuss the molecular design, processing, and fundamental understanding of water-soluble conjugated polymers (aka. conjugated polyelectrolytes, CPEs) with particular emphasis on establishing the relationship between structure-property-performance relationships. CPEs have attracted attention for their ability to combine the optoelectronic properties of conjugated polymers with the ionic conductivity and aqueous solubility of polyelectrolytes. These materials offer significant sustainable processing advantages, as the presence of hydrophilic side groups imparts solubility in environmentally benign solvents like water and alcohols, enabling straightforward fabrication and compatibility with multilayer device architectures. CPEs have been used as charge transporting layers in OLEDs, OFETs, OPVs, and OPDs and as active materials in OECTs. In these devices, performance emerges from the interplay between molecular design, intermolecular interactions, film formation, nanoscale organization, interfaces, and the dynamics of charge injection, transport, or extraction. Specifically, I will discuss the development of CPEs and how chemical structures (conjugated backbone, ionic group, counter ion, and molecular weight) and processing protocols can be used to tune the optical, electronic and ionic charge transport, mechanical property and performance in OECTs, biosensors, organic photodetectors, and 3D printing. A combination of characterization methods such as solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), GIWAXS, AFM, photoconductive AFM, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and impedance spectroscopy are employed to gain insight into the material properties and device performance.
