Development of pi-Conjugated Actuating Polymers

Dr. Atsuro Takai

(ICYS-Sengen Researcher)

Propagating molecular structural changes by external stimuli into macroscopic motion is one of the main goals of bottom-up organic devices such as microrobotics and smart actuators. The continuous effort has been made towards this goal, in particular, using pi-conjugated compounds that can form stimuli-responsive supramolecular assemblies and polymers. Despite this effort, pi-conjugated actuators have been limited so far to the materials that is workable in the presence of ionic media.

In this context, I aim to develop new semiconducting actuators whose electron/hole mobility can change depending on their structures by combining the design strategies for actuating polymers and organic semiconducting materials. I will present materials design strategy in detail.