SYNTHESIS AND PHOTOELECTRICAL PROPERTIES OF POLY[2,6-(P-PHENOXY)-4-PHENYLQUINOLINE]

Abstract

New heteroaromatic polymer containing quinoline unit in the main chain, poly[2,6- (p-phenoxy)-4-phenyl quinoline] (PQ), was synthesized by the acid-catalyzed self-condensation reaction [Friedlander quinoline synthesis] of 4-amino-4'-acetyl-3-benzoyldiphenyl ether, and its chemical structure was characterized by IR and NMR spectra and also by elemental analysis. The PQ was soluble in common organic solvents such as chloroform or tetrahydrofuran; thus a strong coherent film of this polymer could be easily prepared from the solution by the casting or spin-coating technique. Attributing to the wholly aromatic chemical structure, PQ appeared an extremely high thermal stability as to show no weight loss up to 550-degrees-C both in air and nitrogen atmosphere. From the UV-VIS absorption spectra, we found that PQ had a strong tendency to form the charge transfer (CT) complex with electron acceptors such as 2,4,7-trinitrofluorenone (TNF). The CT complex film of PQ-TNF showed a good photoconductivity even under the ambient room illumination and was utilized for the fabrication of photovoltaic device whose conversion efficiency was around 10(-2)%.