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    Soft Poly(butyl acrylate) Side Chains toward Intrinsically Stretchable Polymeric Semiconductors for Field-Effect Transistor Applications

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    Poly­(butyl acrylate) (PBA) side chain equipped isoindigo-bithiophene (II2T) conjugated polymers have been designed and synthesized for stretchable electronic applications. The PBA segment possesses low glass transition temperature and high softness, offering a great opportunity to improve the mechanical property of semiconducting polymer thin films that typically contain lots of rigid conjugated rings. Polymers with 0, 5, 10, 20 and 100% of PBA side chains, named <b>PII2T</b>, <b>PII2T-PBA5</b>, <b>PII2T-PBA10</b>, <b>PII2T-PBA20</b>, and <b>PII2T-PBA100</b>, were explored, and their polymer properties, surface morphology, electrical characteristics, and strain-dependent performance were investigated systematically. The series polymers showed a charge carrier mobility of 0.06–0.8 cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>–1</sup> s<sup>–1</sup> with an on/off current ratio over 10<sup>5</sup> dependent on different amounts of PBA chains as probed using a top-contact transistor device. Moreover, we can still achieve a mobility higher than 0.2 cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>–1</sup> s<sup>–1</sup> even if 10% of PBA side chains were added (i.e., <b>PII2T-PBA10</b>). Such <b>PII2T-PBA</b> polymers, more attractive, exhibited superior thin film ductility with a low tensile modulus down to 0.12 GPa (<b>PII2T-PBA20</b>) due to the soft PBA side chain. The more PBA segment was incroporated, the lower modulus was reached. The mobility performance, at the same time, remained approximately 0.08 cm<sup>2</sup> V<sup>–1</sup> s<sup>–1</sup> based on <b>PII2T-PBA10</b> films even under a 60% strain and could be simultaneously operated over 400 stretching/releasing cycles without significant electrical degradations. The above results suggest that the rational design of soft PBA side chains provides a great potential for next-generation soft and wearable electronic applications
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