Quantitative Analysis of Doping-Induced Polarons and Charge-Transfer Complexes of Poly(3-hexylthiophene) in Solution

The mechanism and the nature of the species formed by molecular doping of the model polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) in its regioregular (rre-) and regiorandom (rra-) forms in solution are investigated for three different dopants: the prototypical π-electron acceptor 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F₄TCNQ), the strong Lewis acid tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane (BCF), and the strongly oxidizing complex molybdenum tris[1-(methoxycarbonyl)-2-(trifluoromethyl)ethane-1,2-dithiolene] (Mo(tfd-CO₂Me)₃). In a combined optical and electron paramagnetic resonance study, we show that the doping of rreP3HT in solution occurs by integer charge transfer, resulting in formation of P3HT radical cations (polarons) for all of the dopants considered here. Remarkably, despite the different chemical nature of the dopants and dopant-polymer interaction, the formed polarons exhibit essentially identical optical absorption spectra. The situation is very different for the doping of rraP3HT, where we observe formation of a charge-transfer complex with F₄TCNQ and of a "localized" P3HT polaron on nonaggregated chains upon doping with BCF, while there is no indication of dopant-induced species in the case of Mo(tfd-CO₂Me)₃. We estimate the ionization efficiency of the respective dopants for the two polymers in solution and report the molar extinction coefficient spectra of the three different species. Finally, we observe increased spin delocalization in regioregular compared to regiorandom P3HT by electron nuclear double resonance, suggesting that the ability of the charge to delocalize on aggregates of planarized polymer backbones plays a significant role in determining the doping mechanism.