Novel carbazole-based donor-isoindolo[2,1-a]benzimidazol-11-one acceptor polymers for ternary flash memory and light-emission

Three novel donor–acceptor polymers (PCz0, PCz2 and PCz4) based on 9-(9-heptadecanyl)-9H-carbazole and isoindolo[2,1-a]benzimidazol-11-one with fluorine substituents (0, 2 and 4) on the acceptor unit were prepared by Suzuki polymerization. The synthesized polymers were studied by theoretical calculation, and optical and electrochemical characterizations to further investigate the performance of memory storage and light-emission. The memory devices of the three polymers all exhibited obvious ternary flash behavior with total ON/OFF state current ratio around 10(4) and threshold voltages below 3.0 V, with no other blending or doping. Bright emissions of an electroluminescence device based on PCz0 was obtained at 556 nm, the maximum brightness was 2006 cd m(−2) with EQE of 0.21%. The results suggested that polymers with the structure of carbazole-based donor as backbone and isoindolo[2,1-a]benzimidazol-11-one segment as acceptor could be excellent materials for memory storage and light-emitting applications with further investigation and could be used for further design of other new polymer systems.