Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: A summary of recent advances in the chemistry and photophysics of alternating dialkylsilylene-divinylarene copolymers is presented. The silicon moieties are considered to be insulating tetrahedral spacers in these copolymers. The substituents on silicon can readily be tuned, and the steric environment of these substituents around the silicon may dictate the conformation (or helicity) of the copolymers (the Thorpe–Ingold effect) and hence their photophysical properties. Because different chromophores can be regioregularly introduced into the polymeric chain, these copolymers have been used as models to study energy transfer and photoinduced electron transfer (PET), as well as chiroptical transfer.