Polar Side Chains Enhance Selection of Semiconducting Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes by Polymer Wrapping

This paper describes the effectiveness of donor–acceptor (D-A) conjugated polymers to disperse and select for semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) when enhanced by inclusion polar oligoethylene glycol-based side chains, without altering D–A backbone. We designed synthesized two sets naphthalenediimide(NDI)-alt-bithiophene(T2)-based with one alkyl chains (decyl dodecyl chains) different lengths or triethylene glycol chains. The resulting low-band-gap copolymers all effectively s-SWCNT, but enhances interactions between polymer backbone walls s-SWCNTs relative only As a result, wrapping selection efficiency polymer-SWCNT systems are both significantly enhanced. further optimized binding energy surface coverage combining ether maximize efficiency, leading field-effect mobility 2.82 cm2 V–1 s–1 on/off current ratios ∼2 × 107 in polymer-wrapped SWCNTs. Our results provide insight into role side-chain dispersion technique, and, because we focus on manipulating they can be generalized other backbones.