The expansion of the field of organic electronics has hinged upon structural and fundamental developments in the field of conjugated polymers. Conjugated polymers allow for the manufacture of low-cost, light-weight, flexible organic electronic devices, with notable applications in organic photovoltaics (OPV), organic field effect transistors (OFET), and organic light emitting diodes (OLED). This extraordinary breadth of applications is due to the remarkable diversity of structure, an extensive understanding of structure-function relationships, and the relative ease of structural tuning. Important advancements and the development of such applications is largely due to the evolution of polymer structure, enabled by a broad range of synthetic methods for the tailoring of structures and the development of improved polymerization conditions to limit defects. This perspective provides background from the early days of concerted and focused conjugated polymer research (1970s-1990) to the present, and describes how the tailoring of conjugated polymer structure has now become closely tied to application. A significant focus is also directed to how polymerization methods have evolved from the aggressive, unselective conditions used for oxidative polymerizations to finely tuned transition-metal catalyzed polymerizations that can provide incredibly high structural-fidelity and can proceed through C–H activation. Areas for future work and emerging areas are also discussed, such as high-performing polymers without added structural and synthetic complexity, identifying polymer structures with improved environmental stability, flexible and transient or bioresorbable conjugated polymers, mixed-ion conductors, and photocatalytic and select biological applications.

有机电子领域的扩展取决于共轭聚合物领域的结构和基础发展。共轭聚合物可用于制造低成本，轻质，柔性的有机电子设备，在有机光伏（OPV），有机场效应晶体管（OFET）和有机发光二极管（OLED）中具有显着的应用。如此广泛的应用是由于结构的显着多样性，对结构-功能关系的广泛理解以及结构调整的相对简便性。这种应用的重要进步和发展很大程度上归因于聚合物结构的发展，广泛的合成方法可用于调整结构和开发改进的聚合条件以限制缺陷。该观点提供了从一致和集中的共轭聚合物研究的早期（1970年代至1990年）到现在的背景，并描述了如何对共轭聚合物结构进行定制与应用紧密相关。一个重要的焦点还指向聚合方法如何从用于氧化聚合的侵蚀性，非选择性条件发展到可以提供令人难以置信的高结构保真度并可以通过C–H活化进行精细调整的过渡金属催化聚合。还讨论了将来的工作领域和新兴领域，例如不增加结构和合成复杂性的高性能聚合物，