Controlled synthesis and chiral expression of tailor-made conjugated polymers

In the domain of conjugated polymers there remains a lack of knowledge about their controlled synthesis and aggregation behavior, both important for the implementation of these materials in applications. Regarding the synthesis, a controlled chain-growth polymerization is aimed for since this results in polymer systems with a controlled molar mass, low dispersity and controlled end-groups, important for materials of high quality and advanced structures. Although a lot of monomers have already been synthesized in a controlled way, it remains a challenge when more advanced monomers are used or more advanced polymer systems such as copolymers are desired. Apart from the controlled synthesis, also the knowledge about the aggregation behavior of more advanced polymer systems remains very limited, mainly due to their difficult synthesis. Implementation of chirality in the polymer side chains enables an easy study of the aggregation behavior via circular dichroism and enables to determine which parameters can have an influence on the aggregation behavior. This research focuses on the controlled synthesis and aggregation behavior of advanced conjugated polymer systems, such as alternating copolymers, block copolymers and star-shaped polymer systems.