NMR study of the structural defects in poly(3-alkylthiophene)s: influence of the polymerization method

We present an NMR study of structural defects in poly(3-decylthiophene)s synthesized with different methods. The polymers obtained with FeCl3 oxidation and by electropolymerization show mainly correlated defects in the enchainment. A lower number of defects, which are uncorrelated, is introduced with the Grignard reaction yielding a polymer with the highest mean conjugation length. The extension of the defect free polymer segments is, however, not very different for the different polymers studied.