Metal containing polymers with heterocyclic rigid main chains

This paper provides an overview on some metal containing polymers that contain heterocyclic systems and metal complexes on the main chain. Heterocycles such as 1,3,4-oxadiazoles, quinoxaline, dipyridophenazine, and benzimidazole may enhance the electron carrier mobilities of the polymers, while the incorporation of ruthenium or rhenium diimine complexes to a conjugated polymer may change the photophysical properties of the resulting polymers significantly. The heterocyclic conjugated main chain can be constructed by condensation ring closure or metal catalyzed coupling reactions. Polymers that contain bidentate or tridentate ligands on the main chain were used for metal coordination. These metal containing polymers have found potential applications in organic opto-electronic devices such as light emitting diodes, optical detectors, and photovoltaic cells. Some metal containing rigid rod polymers based on non-conjugated main chain will also be presented. Metal containing polyimides, polyamides, and polyesters exhibit good thermal stability due to the rigid main chain. Some of them also exhibit thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystal properties. The effect of incorporating metal complex to the physical properties of the polymers was investigated.