Electronic and Morphological Studies of Conjugated Polymers Incorporating a Disk-Shaped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Unit

Journal Article · Tue Aug 25 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5b04907· OSTI ID:1370261

He, Bo ^[1]; Zhang, Benjamin A. ^[2]; Liu, Feng ^[1]; Navarro, Amparo ^[3]; Fernández-Liencres, M. Paz ^[3]; Lu, Ryan ^[1]; Lo, Kelvin ^[2]; Chen, Teresa L. ^[1]; Russell, Thomas P. ^[4]; Liu, Yi ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
3. Univ. de Jaén (Spain)
4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA (United States)

As more research findings have shown the correlation between ordering in organic semiconductor thin films and device performance, it is becoming more essential to exercise control of the ordering through structural tuning. Many recent studies have focused on the influence of side chain engineering on polymer packing orientation in thin films. However, the impact of the size and conformation of aromatic surfaces on thin film ordering has not been investigated in great detail. Here we introduce a disk-shaped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon building block with a large π surface, namely, thienoazacoronenes (TACs), as a donor monomer for conjugated polymers. Here, a series of medium bandgap conjugated polymers have been synthesized by copolymerizing TAC with electron donating monomers of varying size. The incorporation of the TAC unit in such semiconducting polymers allows a systematic investigation, both experimentally and theoretically, of the relationships between polymer conformation, electronic structure, thin film morphology, and charge transport properties. Field effect transistors based on these polymers have shown good hole mobilities and photoresponses, proving that TAC is a promising building block for high performance optoelectronic materials.

• Research Organization: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Polymer-Based Materials for Harvesting Solar Energy (PHaSE)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0001087; AC02-05CH11231; FQM337
• OSTI ID: 1370261
• Journal Information: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 36; Related Information: PHaSE partners with University of Massachusetts, Amherst (lead) and Lowell; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Pennsylvania State University; Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute; University of Pittsburgh; ISSN 1944-8244
• Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
charge transport
morphology
organic semiconductors
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
thienoazacoronene
time-dependent density functional theory