Frank D. King, Hugo Bronstein* Department of Chemistry, University College London, London WC1H 0AJ, UK
The key to enabling their use in optoelectronic devices is precision control of the energy levels in a conjugated polymer. Traditionally, the incorporation of spirocycles into conjugated polymers was used to improve their microstructure of the solid state. Here we present a highly novel method of energy tuning by the use of spirocyclic electronically active systems. By altering a heteroatom’s size and oxidation state in an orthogonal spirocycle, we demonstrate energetic fine tuning in both the absorption and emission of a conjugated polymer. In addition, the synthesis of the highly novel spirocyclic conjugated triplet-decker polymers is presented. This new method of energetic manipulation in a conjugated polymer paves the way for selective synthesis of polymers with electronically active spirocycles for future use.