Recent Progress in Polymer Semiconductor Materials

Dear Colleagues,

Polymer semiconductors have rapidly advanced over the past 30 years, emerging as promising complements to inorganic materials. They offer distinctive advantages, including mechanical flexibility, solution processability, and tunable electronic properties, and their adaptable flow behavior supports a wide range of solution-processing techniques. These qualities enable low-cost, large-area fabrication and position polymer semiconductors as key materials for next-generation technologies such as flexible displays and wearable devices.

Continued progress will rely on improved molecular design, a deeper understanding of structure–property relationships, and more reliable, scalable synthesis. Priority areas include developing greener polymerization methods that allow precise control over morphology while minimizing defects and advancing characterization tools capable of probing both ordered and amorphous domains. To fully unlock their potential, research must also integrate fundamental properties—such as mechanical softness and mixed ionic–electronic conduction—with innovative device architectures, including multilayer, 3D, and stacked designs.

This Special Issue aims to highlight new insights in the design, synthesis, doping strategies, characterization, and morphology control of polymer semiconductors to improve charge transport and device stability. We also welcome contributions on multifunctional polymers for emerging applications, including soft robotics, bio-interfaces, thermoelectrics, and sustainable or biodegradable electronics.

By uniting perspectives from chemistry, physics, materials science, and device engineering, this Issue seeks to identify key challenges, uncover common bottlenecks, and guide the development of next-generation polymer-based electronics.

Dr. Clodomiro Cafolla
Guest Editor

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