Electrically conducting and semiconducting polymers represent a special and still very attractive class of functional chromophores, especially due to their unique optical and electronic properties and their broad device application potential. They are potentially suitable as materials for several applications of high future relevance, for example flexible photovoltaic modules, components of displays/screens and batteries, electrochromic windows, or photocatalysts. Therefore, their synthesis and structure elucidation are still intensely investigated. This article will demonstrate the very fruitful interplay of current electropolymerization research and its exploitation for science education issues. Experiments involving the synthesis of conducting polymers and their assembly into functional devices can be used to teach basic chemical and physical principles as well as to motivate students for an innovative and interdisciplinary field of chemistry.

Electropolymerization is a convenient way to obtain conducting polymers (CPs) directly adhered to an electrode surface. CPs are well-known for their various application fields in photovoltaic cells, chemical sensors, and electronics. By implementing chirality into a CP, the application possibilities will spread further onto chiral sensors or optoelectronics. In this work, we introduce a new inherently chiral polymer based on a macrocyclic 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene-diketopyrrolopyrrole-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene triad (EDOT-DPP-EDOT) fused by 1,4-phenylene groups, which was prepared via oxidative electropolymerization directly on the electrode surface. The investigation of the chiroptical properties was performed by circular dichroism spectroscopy in the solid state. The enantiomeric pure polymer films obtained showed dissymmetry factors of up to −2.71 × 10⁻⁴, whereby linear dichroism contributions can be widely excluded.