Hydrogen-Bonding Induced Crosslinked Polymer Network for Highly Stable Electrochromic Device and a Construction Strategy for Black-Bilayer Electrochromic Film

This work presents a new strategy to achieve highly stable electrochromic devices and bilayer film construction. A novel solution-processable electrochromic polymer P1-Boc with quinacridone as the conjugated backbone and t-Boc as N-substituted non-conjugated solubilizing groups is designed. Thermal annealing of P1-Boc film results in the cleavage of t-Boc groups and the formation of N─H⋯O═C hydrogen-bonding crosslinked network, which changes its intrinsic solubility characteristics into a solvent-resistant P1 film. This film retains the electrochemical behavior and spectroelectrochemistry properties of the original P1-Boc film. Intriguingly, the electrochromic device based on the P1 film exhibits an ultrafast switching time (0.56/0.80 s at 523 nm) and robust electrochromic stability (retaining 88.4% of the initial optical contrast after 100 000 cycles). The observed cycle lifetime is one of the highest reported for all-organic electrochromic devices. In addition, a black-transparent bilayer electrochromic film P1/P2 is developed in which the use of the solvent-resistant P1 film as the bottom layer avoids interface erosion of the solution-processable polymer in a multilayer stacking.