Photoinduced Charge Separation in Molecular Silicon

Interest in molecular silicon semiconductors arises from the properties shared with bulk silicon like earth abundance and the unique architectures accessible from a structure distinctly different than rigid π‐conjugated organic semiconductors. We report ultrafast spectroscopic evidence for direct, photoinduced charge separation in molecular silicon semiconductors that supports the viability of molecular silicon as donor materials in optoelectronic devices. The materials in this study are σ–π hybrids, in which electron‐deficient aromatic acceptors flank a σ‐conjugated silicon chain. Transient absorption and femtosecond‐stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) techniques revealed signatures consistent with direct, optical charge transfer from the silane chain to the acceptor; these signatures were only observed by probing excited‐state structure. Our findings suggest new opportunities for controlling charge separation in molecular electronics.     

Synthesis and Application of Rylene Imide Dyes as Organic Semiconducting Materials

Rylene imide dyes have been among the most promising organic semiconducting materials for several years due to their remarkable optoelectronic properties and high chemical/thermal stability. In the past decades, various excellent rylene imide dyes have been developed for optoelectronic devices, such as organic solar cells (OSCs) and organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs). Recently, tremendous progress of perylene diimides (PDIs) and their analogues for use in OSCs has been achieved, which can be attributed to their ease of functionalization. In this review, we will mainly focus on the synthetic strategies toward to latest PDI dyes and higher rylene imide analogues. A variety of compounds synthesized from different building blocks are summarized, and some properties and applications are discussed.     

Density functional theory study on electron and hole transport properties of organic pentacene derivatives with electron-withdrawing substituent

Attaching electron-withdrawing substituent to organic conjugated molecules is considered as an effective method to produce n-type and ambipolar transport materials. In this work, we use density functional theory calculations to investigate the electron and hole transport properties of pentacene (PENT) derivatives after substituent and simulate the angular resolution anisotropic mobility for both electron and hole transport. Our results show that adding electron-withdrawing substituents can lower the energy level of lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and increase electron affinity, which are beneficial to the electron injection and ambient stability of the material. Also the LUMO electronic couplings for electron transport in these pentacene derivatives can achieve up to a hundred meV which promises good electron transport mobility, although adding electron-withdrawing groups will introduce the increase of electron transfer reorganization energy. The final results of our angular resolution anisotropic mobility simulations show that the electron mobility of these pentacene derivatives can get to several cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), but it is important to control the orientation of the organic material relative to the device channel to obtain the highest electron mobility. Our investigation provide detailed information to assist in the design of n-type and ambipolar organic electronic materials with high mobility performance.     

Electron transporting semiconducting polymers in organic electronics

Significant progress has been achieved in the preparation of semiconducting polymers over the past two decades, and successful commercial devices based on them are slowly beginning to enter the market. However, most of the conjugated polymers are hole transporting, or p-type, semiconductors that have seen a dramatic rise in performance over the last decade. Much less attention has been devoted to electron transporting, or n-type, materials that have lagged behind their p-type counterparts. Organic electron transporting materials are essential for the fabrication of organic p-n junctions, organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs), n-channel organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and complementary logic circuits. In this critical review we focus upon recent developments in several classes of electron transporting semiconducting polymers used in OLEDs, OFETs and OPVs, and survey and analyze what is currently known concerning electron transporting semiconductor architecture, electronic structure, and device performance relationships (87 references).     

N-Type Quinoidal Polymers Based on Dipyrrolopyrazinedione for Application in All-Polymer Solar Cells

Conjugated molecules and polymers with intrinsic quinoidal structure are promising n-type organic semiconductors, which have been reported for application in field-effect transistors and thermoelectric devices. In principle, the molecular and electronic characteristics of quinoidal polymers can also enable their application in organic solar cells. Herein, two quinoidal polymers, named PzDP-T and PzDP-ffT, based on dipyrrolopyrazinedione were synthesized and used as electron acceptors in all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Both PzDP-T and PzDP-ffT showed suitable energy levels and wide light absorption range that extended to the near-infrared region. When combined with the polymer donor PBDB-T, the resulting all-PSCs based on PzDP-T and PzDP-ffT exhibited a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.33 and 2.37 %, respectively. This is the first report on the application of intrinsic quinoidal conjugated polymers in all-PSCs. The photovoltaic performance of the all-PSCs was revealed to be mainly limited by the relatively poor and imbalanced charge transport, considerable charge recombination. Detailed investigations on the structure-performance relationship suggested that synergistic optimization of light absorption, energy levels, and charge transport properties is needed to achieve more successful application of intrinsic quinoidal conjugated polymers in all-PSCs.     

Non‐Conjugated Dicarboxylate Anode Materials for Electrochemical Cells

Classical organic anode materials for Na‐ion batteries are mostly based on conjugated carboxylate compounds, which can stabilize added electrons by the double‐bond reformation mechanism. Now, 1,4‐cyclohexanedicarboxylic acid (C₈H₁₂O₄, CHDA) with a non‐conjugated ring (?C₆H₁₀?) connected with carboxylates is shown to undergo electrochemical reactions with two Na ions, delivering a high charge specific capacity of 284 mA h g^?1 (249 mA h g^?1 after 100 cycles), and good rate performance. First‐principles calculations indicate that hydrogen‐transfer‐mediated orbital conversion from antibonding π* to bonding σ stabilize two added electrons, and reactive intermediate with unpaired electron is suppressed by localization of σ‐bonds and steric hindrance. An advantage of CHDA as an anode material is good reversibility and relatively constant voltage. A large variety of organic non‐conjugated compounds are predicted to be promising anode materials for sodium‐ion batteries.     

Tetrahedral n-type materials: efficient quenching of the excitation of p-type polymers in amorphous films

Tetrahedral naphthalenediimide compound 1 has been synthesized as an example of a new class of amorphous n-type materials, in which the nondirectionality obtained by its shape is decoupled from its optoelectronic properties. 1 forms bicontinuous films with p-type polymers and effectively quenches the excited state, yielding long-lived mobile charge carriers on pulsed illumination.     

Molecular Designs and Properties of Highly Efficient Blue Emitters for OLEDs

Advances made in the molecular design of modern optoelectronic materials have made significant contributions toward the development of organic electronics. The organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) employing monodisperse or polymeric conjugated materials possess the most promising prospects. However, materials suitable for long-term use as blue light emitters are still far from optimization in terms of stability.In the past few years, interesting materials based on 9,9-diaryl-substituted fluorene as a core structure have been developed in our laboratory. We developed a series of efficient and morphologically stable pyrimidine-containing 9,9'-spirobifluorene-cored oligoaryls as pure blue emitters. The steric hindrance inherent with the molecular structure renders the material with a record-high thin-film PL quantum yield of ～95% and a glass transition temperature (Tg) of ～200 ℃.Blue OLEDs employing this thermally stable compound as the emitting host exhibit unusual endurance for high currents. Injection current over 5,000 mA/cm2 and maximal brightness of～80,000 cd/m2 had been demonstrated, representing the highest values reported for blue OLEDs under dc driving. In addition, a series of oligofluorene homologues have been synthesized. These oligofluorenes exhibit interesting reversible bipolar redox properties and excellent morphological and thermal stability. Furthermore, nondispersive ambipolar high hole and electron mobilities over 10-3 cm2/V.s can be achieved with these oligo(9,9-diarylfluorene)s. In particular, the electron mobility observed represents the highest ever reported for amorphous molecular solids. These intriguing properties together with the high quantum yields in thin films make these oligo(9,9-diarylfluorene)s are promising for OLEDs applications as efficient blue emitters. In this meeting, the synthesis and properties of these materials and their highly efficient OLEDs device characteristics will be discussed.     

Theoretical study of the charge carrier mobilities of the molecular materials tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) and 2,5-bis(1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidene)-1,3,4,6-tetrathiapentalene (BDH-TTP)

Tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) is a kind of fused ring aromatic compound containing four sulfur atoms in one molecule, which is well known as a charge transport material. In order to calculate the charge mobility of this semiconductor, Marcus electron transfer theory and the embedded model, which can give small intramolecular reorganization energies, were employed. The calculated results were in good agreement with the experimental values, so the above computing model is appropriate to assess the electrical property of TTF. On this basis, we predicted the charge mobility of 2,5-bis(1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidene)-1,3,4,6-tetrathiapentalene (BDH-TTP) crystals, for which the molecular structure is similar to TTF. The calculated results indicated that BDH-TTP is a p-type material, which has a better performance than TTF in hole transfer due to larger hole coupling and the smaller hole injection barrier. In addition, the direct coupling (DC) and the site energy correction (SEC) methods were used to calculate the charge transfer integrals. Although the results were slightly different, the qualitative trends were the same. Furthermore we took into account the anisotropic transfer properties of TTF and BDH-TTF, since obviously the mobilities along one dimension are larger than those along three dimensions. Finally, natural bond orbital analysis was used to study the interactions in all of the dimers.     

面向有机光电材料的电子激发态结构与过程的计算方法

共轭聚合物与有机分子材料中的电子激发结构与过程决定了材料的光电功能：根据Kasha规则,低能级激发态的排序决定能否发光;最低激发态至基态的辐射跃迁与无辐射跃迁之间的竞争决定了发光效率,后者主要由非绝热耦合（声子作用）决定;电荷激发态载体的传输由电子分布与振动耦合或杂质和无序的散射弛豫过程决定．本文针对有机功能材料的发光性能,介绍两种理论方法的研究进展,即可用于计算共轭聚合物激发态结构的量子化学密度矩阵重整化群方法和计算发光效率的多模耦合无辐射跃迁速率方法．这些方法被应用于有机功能材料的性能预测和分子设计中．     

Theoretical insights into the 1D‐charge transport properties in a series of hexaazatrinaphthylene‐based discotic molecules

Discotic liquid crystal (DLC) materials have attracted considerable attention mainly due to their high charge carrier mobilities in quasi‐one‐dimensional columns. In this article, five hexaazatrinaphthylene‐based DLC molecules were investigated theoretically, and their frontier molecular orbital energy levels, crystal structures, and electron/hole drift mobilities were calculated by combination of density functional theory (DFT) and semiclassical Marcus charge transfer theory. The systems studied in this work include three experimentally reported molecules ( 1 , 2 , and 3 ) and two theoretically designed molecules ( 4 and 5 ). Compared with the 1 – 3 compounds, 4 and 5 have three more extended benzene rings in the π‐conjugated core. The present results show that the orders of the frontier molecular orbital energy levels and electron drift mobilities agree very well with the experiment. For 4 and 5 , the electron/hole reorganization energies are lower than those of compounds 1 – 3 . Furthermore, the calculated electron/hole transfer integral of 5 is the largest among all the five systems, leading to the highest electron and hole mobilities. In addition, the hydrophobicity and solubility were also evaluated by DFT, indicating that compound 5 has good hydrophobicity and good solubility in trichloromethane. As a result, it is expected that compound 5 can be a potential charge transport material in electronic and optoelectronic devices. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

非富勒烯聚合物太阳电池研究进展

综述了以p-型共轭聚合物为给体、n-型有机半导体为受体的非富勒烯聚合物太阳电池光伏材料最新研究进展,包括n-型共轭聚合物和可溶液加工小分子n-型有机半导体(n-OS)受体光伏材料,以及与之匹配的p-型共轭聚合物给体光伏材料.介绍的n-型共轭聚合物受体光伏材料包括基于苝酰亚胺(BDI)、萘酰亚胺(NDI)以及新型硼氮键连受体单元的D-A共聚物受体光伏材料,目前基于聚合物给体(J51)和聚合物受体(N2200)的全聚合物太阳电池的能量转换效率最高达到8.26%.n-OS小分子受体光伏材料包括基于BDI和NDI单元的有机分子、基于稠环中心给体单元的A-D-A型窄带隙有机小分子受体材料等.给体光伏材料包括基于齐聚噻吩和苯并二噻吩(BDT)给体单元的D-A共聚物,重点介绍与窄带隙A-D-A结构小分子受体吸收互补的、基于噻吩取代BDT单元的中间带隙二维共轭聚合物给体光伏材料.使用中间带隙的p-型共轭聚合物为给体、窄带隙A-D-A结构有机小分子为受体的非富勒烯聚合物太阳电池能量转换效率已经突破12%,展示了光明的前景.最后对非富勒烯聚合物太阳电池将来的发展进行了展望.     

Single-wall carbon nanotube-containing cathode interfacial materials for high performance organic solar cells

Water/alcohol soluble cathode interfacial materials(CIMs)are playing important roles in optoelectronic devices such as organic light emitting diodes,perovskite solar cells and organic solar cells(OSCs).Herein,n-doped solution-processable single-wall carbon nanotubes(SWCNTs)-containing CIMs for OSCs are developed by dispersing SWCNTs to the typical CIMs perylene diimide(PDI)derivatives PDIN and PDINO.The Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS)measurement results illustrate the ndoped behavior of SWCNTs by PDIN/PDINO in the blend CIMs.The blended and n-doped SWCNTs can tune the work function and enhance the conductivity of the PDI-derivative/SWCNT(PDI-CNT)composite CIMs,and the composite CIMs can regulate and down-shift the work function of cathode,reduce the charge recombination,improve the charge extraction rate and enhance photovoltaic performance of the OSCs.High power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 17.1%and 17.7%are obtained for the OSCs based on PM6:Y6 and ternary PM6:Y6:PC₇₁ BM respectively with the PDI-CNTcomposites CIMs.These results indicate that the ndoped SWCNT-containing composites,like other n-doped nanomaterials such as zero dimensional fullerenes and two dimensional graphenes,are excellent CIMs for OSCs and could find potential applications in other optoelectronic devices.     

Optimized Crystal Framework by Asymmetric Core Isomerization in Selenium-Substituted Acceptor for Efficient Binary Organic Solar Cells

Both the regional isomerization and selenium-substitution of the small molecular acceptors (SMAs) play significant roles in developing efficient organic solar cells (OSCs), while their synergistic effects remain elusive. Herein, we developed three isomeric SMAs (S-CSeF, A-ISeF, and A-OSeF) via subtly manipulating the mono-selenium substituted position (central, inner, or outer) and type of heteroaromatic ring on the central core by synergistic strategies for efficient OSCs, respectively. Crystallography of asymmetric A-OSeF presents a closer intermolecular π–π stacking and more ordered 3-dimensional network packing and efficient charge-hopping pathways. With the successive out-shift of the mono-selenium substituted position, the neat films give a slightly wider band gap and gradually higher crystallinity and electron mobility. The PM1 : A-OSeF afford favourable fibrous phase separation morphology with more ordered molecular packing and efficient charge transportation compared to the other two counterparts. Consequently, the A-OSeF-based devices achieve a champion efficiency of 18.5 %, which represents the record value for the reported selenium-containing SMAs in binary OSCs. Our developed precise molecular engineering of the position and type of selenium-based heteroaromatic ring of SMAs provides a promising synergistic approach to optimizing crystal stacking and boosting top-ranked selenium-containing SMAs-based OSCs.     

Optimal bulk-heterojunction morphology enabled by fibril network strategy for high-performance organic solar cells

A bicontinuous network formed spontaneously upon film preparation is highly desirable for bulk-heterojunction(BHJ) organic solar cells(OSCs). Many donor-acceptor(D-A) type conjugated polymers can self-assemble into polymer fibrils in the solid state and such fibril-assembly can construct the morphological framework by forming a network structure, inducing the formation of ideal BHJ morphology. Our recent works have revealed that the fibril network strategy(FNS) can control the blend morphology in fullerene, non-fullerene and ternary OSCs. It has been shown that the formation of fibril network can optimize phase separation scale and ensure efficient exciton dissociation and charge carriers transport, thus leading to impressive power conversion efficiencies(PCEs) and high fill factor(FF) values. We believe that FNS will provide a promising approach for the optimization of active layer morphology and the improvement of photovoltaic performance, and further promote the commercialization of OSCs.     

Unsymmetrically Chlorinated Non-Fused Electron Acceptor Leads to High-Efficiency and Stable Organic Solar Cells

Searching the cost-effective organic semiconductors is strongly needed in order to facilitate the practice of organic solar cells (OSCs), yet to be fulfilled. Herein, we have succeeded in developing two non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs), leading to the highest efficiency of 16.2 % for the NFREA derived OSCs. These OSCs exhibit the superior operational stabilities under one sun equivalent illumination without ultraviolet (UV) filtration. It is revealed that the modulation of halogen substituents on aromatic side chains, as the new structural tool to tune the intermolecular interaction and optoelectronic properties of acceptors, not only promotes the interlocked tic-tac-toe frame of three-dimensional stacks in solid, but also improves charge dynamics of acceptors to enable high-performance and stable OSCs.     

Insights into the Control of Optoelectronic Properties in Mixed-Stacking Charge-Transfer Complexes

Although cocrystallization has provided a promising platform to develop new organic optoelectronic materials, it is still a big challenge to purposely design and achieve specific optoelectronic properties. Herein, a series of mixed-stacking cocrystals (TMFA, TMCA, and TMTQ) were designed and synthesized, and the regulatory effects of the acceptors on the co-assembly behavior, charge-transfer nature, energy-level structures, and optoelectronic characteristics were systematically investigated. The results demonstrate that it is feasible to achieve effective charge-transport tuning and photoresponse switching by carefully regulating the intermolecular charge transfer and energy orbitals. The inherent mechanisms underlying the change in these optoelectronic behaviors were analyzed in depth and elucidated to provide clear guidelines for future development of new optoelectronic materials. In addition, due to the excellent photoresponsive characteristics of TMCA, TMCA-based phototransistors were investigated with varying light wavelength and optical power, and TMCA shows the best performance among all reported cocrystals under UV illumination.     

卟啉类化合物分子光电器件研究进展

分子电子器件是未来分子电路的微电子元件,已成为有机功能纳米材料研究的热点。 卟啉类化合物的π共轭体系表现出的独特光电性能和良好的热稳定性,使其作为光电器件、模拟生物酶、分子识别和传感材料在材料化学、医学、生物化学和分析化学等领域展现出良好的应用前景,由于卟啉分子平面结构的易修饰性,常用卟啉化合物组装单元来构建功能化的卟啉光电器件。 本文综述了卟啉类化合物的特点及其在光电器件中的应用进展。     

氮杂苯并菲类n-型有机半导体材料研究进展

苯并菲盘状液晶是一类新型的有机电子学材料.该类材料多数以空穴传输功能为主,能传输电子的n-型材料较少.氮杂苯并菲是与苯并菲衍生物非常相似的一种杂环化合物,材料结构中引入了氮原子,吸电子能力得到增强,是潜在的n-型有机半导体材料,具有重要的应用价值.本文系统回顾了氮杂苯并菲类盘状液晶材料的研究进展,分类讨论了材料的分子结构,其中包括二、四、六氮杂苯并菲,以及它们的合成方法和物理化学性能,论述了材料在光电子领域的最新使用进展,并在此基础上,对该类液晶材料作为n-型有机半导体在光电子器件领域的应用前景进行了展望.