The effect of side-chain length on the solid-state structure and optoelectronic properties of fluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole based conjugated polymers--a DFT study.

Using the dispersion corrected density functional theory (DFT-D/B97D) approach, we have performed bulk solid-state calculations to investigate the influence of side-chain length on the molecular packing and optoelectronic properties of poly (9,9-di-n-alkylfluorene-alt-benzothiadiazole) or FnBT's where n is the number of CH(2) units in the alkyl side-chains. Our results indicate that the FnBT's with longer side-chains in their most stable configurations, due to the significant intermolecular interactions between the side-chains, form lamellar crystal structures. On the other hand, for the FnBT's with shorter side-chains, two nearly degenerate stable crystal structures with nearly hexagonal symmetries have been found. These different packing structures can be attributed to the microphase separations between the flexible side-chains and the rigid backbones whose existence has been discussed in previous investigations for other hairy rod polymers. As a result of the efficient interchain interactions for the lamellar structures, the dihedral angle between the F and BT units is reduced by about 30°, providing a more planar configuration for the backbone. In turn, a more planar backbone leads to a decrease, about 0.2 and 0.3 eV, of the band gaps of the lamellar structures relative to the gap values for the gas and the nearly hexagonal phases, respectively. Time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) was used to study the excited states of the monomers of FnBT's with various lengths of side-chains. TD-DFT study suggests that the absorption spectrum of the polymers with longer side-chains is red-shifted relative to the polymers with shorter side-chains and the gas phase.