Towards organic polymers with very small intrinsic band gaps. I. Electronic structure of polyisothianaphthene and derivatives

J. L. Brédas*, A. J. Heeger, F. Wudl

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

234 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present valence effective Hamiltonian (VEH) band-structure calculations on polyisothianaphthene and some of its simple derivatives. Our goal is to rationalize the lowering of the band gap by about 1 eV which is experimentally observed in polyisothianaphthene (Eg=∼1 eV) relative to the parent polymer, polythiophene (Eg=∼2 eV). We show that the smaller band gap found in polyisothianaphthene can be understood on the basis of a relationship which can be established between the band gap energy and the importance of the effective quinoid contributions to the electronic structure. Our theoretical results also indicate that simple dimethyl, dimethoxy, or dicyano substitutions are not expected to affect the size of the band gap in any significant way.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)4673-4678
Number of pages6
JournalThe Journal of chemical physics
Volume85
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 1986
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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