Designing p-Type Semiconducting Polymers with Hydrogen-Bonding Moieties: Challenges and Opportunities for Stretchable Organic Field-Effect Transistors

Abstract

The development of stretchable and deformable electronics demands semiconducting materials capable of maintaining efficient charge transport under large mechanical deformation; however, the structural features that favor high charge mobility, namely rigid conjugated backbones, high crystallinity, and strong intermolecular interactions, often make polymer thin films mechanically brittle. Hydrogen bonding has emerged as a powerful and versatile molecular design strategy for reconciling this trade-off in semiconducting polymers, owing to its directionality, tunable strength, and dynamic reversibility. This Spotlight highlights recent advances in the use of hydrogen bonding to design stretchable semiconducting polymers for organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), with emphasis on how supramolecular interactions influence polymer synthesis, thin-film organization, and device performance. This article discusses representative examples spanning side-chain functionalization, backbone engineering, and physical blending strategies to illustrate how hydrogen bonding can act as a multifunctional design tool, capable of simultaneously addressing mechanical resilience, thermal stability, and electronic performance. Additionally, a perspective is offered on integrating these molecular design principles with autonomous and AI-guided fabrication platforms, reflecting a broader paradigm shift in materials discovery and a path toward the rational, high-throughput design of stretchable and bio-integrated organic electronic technologies.