Polymers can be found in everything from clothes to food packaging, and even in energy-generating devices like photovoltaics (PVs). Decades worth of studies on conducting and semiconducting polymers have shown that just slight alterations or defects in a polymer chain can have drastic effects on its conductance.

Semiconducting polymers can be made through a range of catalysed reactions (such as the Stille polymerization reaction), but they generally require precise reaction conditions to produce a product with a narrow spread of molecular weights. More often, a broad distribution of molecular weights are produced, which will impact their charge transfer properties. Polymers with higher weights and narrow spreads are better at conducting charges.