Molecular and Supramolecular Engineering of Thiophene Based Materials for Application in Organic Electronics and Bioimaging

Thiophene based oligomers and polymers are of great current interest from a scientific and technological point of view for their numerous properties: they are electroactive, fluorescent, chemically stable and allow a great diversity in molecular structures and a fine tuning of functional characteristics. They display ‘plasticity’ in adapting their geometry to the environment in the solid state and in creating supramolecular architectures by self-organization. Moreover, they have the capability to finely interact with biologically relevant molecules such as intracellular proteins. All these properties allow a large number of different applications in fields such as organic electronics and bioimaging which prompted the development of highly efficient and ‘user friendly’ synthetic approaches for their preparation. We have synthesized unprecedented classes of functional thiophene based materials by employing enabling technologies such as microwave and ultrasound irradiation in order to obtain oligo and polythiophenes in very pure form and high yields. Preparing oligo- and polythiophenes in very pure form by means of rapid and environmentally friendly procedures is crucial for application of these compounds in materials chemistry as semiconductor and fluorescent compounds for electronic and optoelectronic devices as well as for application in cell imaging and monitoring of intracellular processes.