Abstract

A series of three new oligo-poly(azomethine)s (o-PAzMs) were successfully synthesized, incorporating tetra-phenylsilane (TPS) and 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) moieties with Mn and Mw between 3.9 and 5.4 kDa and 8.3-11.6 kDa, respectively. The silylated o-PAzMs were highly soluble in low-boiling point solvents such as CHCl3, THF, and CH2Cl2. All three materials are highly thermally stable, with onset temperatures of degradation of at least 250 degrees C and with TDT10% between 340 and 460 degrees C. The glass transition temperature values agree with the flexibility of the repetitive units and showed values between 125 and 155 degrees C. The absorption and emission of the o-PAzMs were observed in the blue-violet UV-vis region (350-550 nm) with moderate Stokes shifts (48-71 nm). The oligomers are it-conjugated wide-band gap materials (2.83-2.73 eV), where the high electronic tran-sitions would be associated with disruption of it-conjugation, which is promoted by the TPS core and (d-p)it orbital interactions. This disruption controls the effect from the EDOT unit rich donor on HOMO (-5.79 eV to-5.71 eV) and LUMO (-2.98 eV to-2.89 eV) energy values. Furthermore, DFT and TDDFT calculations were performed to theoretically characterize the observed UV-Vis transitions and frontier molecular orbitals (MOs) energies.