Degradable Fluorene-based Polymers for Highly Selective Sorting of Semiconducting Single-walled Carbon Nanotubes

This thesis has been focused on the design, synthesis, and performance of the fluorene-based polymers for SWCNTs sorting according to their electronic type and handedness. The unique electronic structure and interesting optical properties of SWCNTs will be described and followed by the production methods of SWCNTs and their applications to build electronic devices. For sorting of as-produced SWCNTs according to their electronic type, chiral index, and handedness, various approaches have been developed over the last two decades. Among those, polymer wrapping has been proved to be one of the most promising method due to their high selectivity, tunable structure and simple processability. In particular, fluorene-based polymers have been intensively studied and used for SWCNT sorting. By altering the backbone structure, fluorene-based polymers have achieved the enrichment of s-SWCNTs with high purity, the single-chirality enrichment, and even the handedness separation of SWCNTs. Recently, imine-based polymers which can be easily removed after the sorting process have been reported and provide a promising approach for isolation of dispersant-free s-SWCNTs. Under this background, we designed and synthesized an acid cleavable fluorene-carbazole copolymer for highly selective dispersion of s-SWCNT with a wide range of chiral index. Furthermore, to reach the summit of SWCNT sorting, we designed and synthesized one pair of cleavable chiral polyfluorenes for enantiomeric separation of s-SWCNTs.