Sanne Govaerts invites you to the public defense of her doctoral thesis entitled: "Synthesis and characterization of ionic copolythiophenes and all-conjugated polymers with advanced architectures for organic electronics."

Promoter is Prof. Dr. Wouter Maes.

Co-promoters are Prof. Dr. Dirk Vanderzande and dr. Laurence Lutsen.

Abstract:

To become viable for commercialization, organic photovoltaics still need to improve in terms of production cost, efficiency and stability. Since the efficiency can be boosted by incorporating conjugated polyelectrolytes as cathode interlayers, a first part of this work describes the synthesis and application of ionic copolythiophenes as interlayers in organic solar cells. The efficiency is also influenced by the molar mass and dispersity of the donor material, so it would be interesting if these parameters could be controlled. That is why in a second part of this work, the controlled synthesis of low bandgap alternating donor-acceptor copolymers was pursued via Kumada catalysttransfer condensation polymerization. Another important factor governing the efficiency and stability of organic solar cells is the morphology of the photoactive layer. Hence, the synthesis of all-conjugated block copolymers or hyperbranched polymers was also explored. As such, the general goal of this doctoral thesis was to synthesize and characterize ionic (co)polythiophenes and all-conjugated copolymers with advanced architectures via transition-metal catalyzed polymerization procedures and to explore their possible applications in organic electronics