ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA, vol.138, pp.454-463, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
Synthesis of new conducting polymers is desired since their electrochemical and optical properties enable them to be used as active layers in many device applications. Benzotriazole and N-functionalized 2,5-di(2-thienyl)-1H-pyrrole (SNS Series) containing polymers showed very promising results as electrochromic materials. In order to observe the effect of the combination of these two units, three new monomers; 2-(6-(2,5-bis(5-methylthiophen-2-yl)-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)hexyl)-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)-2H benzo[d][1,2,3]triazole (M1), 2-(6-(2,5-di(thiophen-2-yl)-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)hexyl)-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)-2H-benzo[d][1,2,3]triazole (M2) and 2-(6-(2,5-di(thiophen-2-yl)-1H-pyrrol-1-yl)hexyl)-4,7-bis(5-methylthiophen-2-y1)-2H-benzo[d][1,2,3]triazole (M3) were synthesized. To better characterize the electronic and spectroscopic properties of the monomers, density functional theory (DFT) and its time-dependent generalization (TD-DFT) were used to calculate their vertical ionization potentials, vertical electron affinity and to simulate and interpret their infrared and UV-vis spectra. The monomers were electrochemically polymerized and the resultant polymers were characterized with cyclic voltammetry and UV-vis-NIR spectroscopy techniques. An electrochromic device was constructed with electrochemical polymer of M2. The device switched between red and blue colors and showed exceptional optical memory. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.