Alkylated selenophene-based ladder-type monomers via a facile route for high performance thin-film transistor applications

We report the synthesis of two new selenophene containing ladder-type monomers, cyclopentadiselenophene and (CDS) and indacenodiselenophene (IDSe), via a facile route. Co-polymers with benzothiadiazole (BT) were prepared in high yield by Suzuki polymerization to afford co-polymers which exhibited excellent solubility in a range of non-chlorinated solvents.Thin-film transistors were fabricated using environmentally benign, non-chlorinated solvents with the CDS and IDSe co-polymers exhibiting hole mobility up to 0.15 and 6.4 cm2/Vs, respectively.