We report two strategies toward the synthesis of 3-alkyl-4-fluorothiophenes containing straight (hexyl and octyl) and branched (2-ethylhexyl) alkyl groups. We demonstrate that treatment of the dibrominated monomer with 1 equiv of alkyl Grignard reagent leads to the formation of a single regioisomer as a result of the pronounced directing effect of the fluorine group. Polymerization of the resulting species affords highly regioregular poly(3-alkyl-4-fluoro)thiophenes. Comparison of their properties to those of the analogous non-fluorinated polymers shows that backbone fluorination leads to an increase in the polymer ionization potential without a significant change in optical band gap. Fluorination also results in an enhanced tendency to aggregate in solution, which is ascribed to a more co-planar backbone on the basis of Raman and DFT calculations. Average charge carrier mobilities in field-effect transistors are found to increase by up to a factor of 5 for the fluorinated polymers.

The emission of circularly-polarized light is central to many applications, including data storage, quantum computation, biosensing, environmental monitoring and display technologies. An emerging method to induce (chiral) circularly-polarized (CP) electroluminescence from the active layer of polymer light emitting diodes (polymer OLEDs; PLEDs) involves blending achiral polymers with chiral small molecule additives, where the handedness/sign of the CP light is controlled by the absolute stereochemistry of the small molecule. Through the in-depth study of such a system we report an interesting chiroptical property: the ability to tune the sign of CP light as function of active layer thickness for a fixed enantiomer of the chiral additive. We demonstrate that it is possible to achieve both efficient (4.0 cd/A) and bright (8000 cd/m 2) CP-PLEDs, with high dissymmetry of emission of both left handed (LH) and right handed (RH) light, depending on thickness (thin films, 110 nm: g EL = 0.51, thick films, 160 nm: g EL = −1.05, with the terms "thick" and "thin" representing the upper and lower limits of the thickness regime studied), for the same additive enantiomer. We propose that this arises due to an interplay between localized CP emission originating from molecular chirality and CP light amplification or inversion through a chiral medium. We link morphological, spectroscopic, and electronic characterization in thin films and devices with theoretical studies in an effort to determine the factors that underpin these observations. Through the control of active layer thickness and device architecture, this study provides insights into the mechanisms that result in CP luminescence from CP-PLEDs, opportunities in CP photonic device design, and demonstrate high performance CP-PLEDs.

The dissymmetric interaction between circularly polarised (CP) light and chiral molecules is central to a range of areas, from spectroscopy and imaging to next-generation photonic devices. However, the selectivity in...

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Mixed anion compounds in the Fm3̅ m vacancy ordered perovskite structure were synthesized and characterized experimentally and computationally with a focus on compounds where A = Cs + . Pure anion Cs 2 SnX 6 compounds were formed with X = Cl, Br, and I using a room temperature solution phase method. Mixed anion compounds were formed as solid solutions of Cs 2 SnCl 6 and Cs 2 SnBr 6 and a second series from Cs 2 SnBr 6 and Cs 2 SnI 6 . Single phase structures formed across the entirety of both composition series with no evidence of long-range anion ordering observed by diffraction. A distortion of the cubic A 2 BX 6 structure was identified in which the spacing of the BX 6 octahedra changes to accommodate the A site cation without reduction of overall symmetry. Optical band gap values varied with anion composition between 4.89 eV in Cs 2 SnCl 6 to 1.35 eV in Cs 2 SnI 6 but proved highly nonlinear with changes in composition. In mixed halide compounds, it was found that lower energy optical transitions appeared that were not present in the pure halide compounds, and this was attributed to lowering of the local symmetry within the tin halide octahedra. The electronic structure was characterized by photoemission spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy revealed vibrational modes in the mixed halide compounds that could be assigned to particular mixed halide octahedra. This analysis was used to determine the distribution of octahedra types in mixed anion compounds, which was found to be consistent with a near-random distribution of halide anions throughout the structure, although some deviations from random halide distribution were noted in mixed iodide−bromide compounds, where the larger iodide anions preferentially adopted trans configurations.

The consideration of anisotropic structural properties and their impact on optoelectronic properties in small-molecule thin films is vital to understand the performance of devices incorporating crystalline organic semiconductors. Here we report on the important relationship between structural and optoelectronic anisotropy in aligned, functionalized-pentacene thin films fabricated using the solution-based zone-casting technique. The microstructure of thin films composed of 6,13-bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) and 6,13-bis(triethylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TES-pentacene) is systematically controlled by varying the casting speed. By controlling the structural alignment, we were able to experimentally decouple, for the first time in these films, an intramolecular absorption transition dipole (at ∼440 nm) oriented close to the pentacene short axis and an intermolecular absorption transition dipole (at ∼695 nm) oriented predominantly along the conjugated pentacene-pentacene core stacking axis (crystallographic a-axis) in both films. Using the intermolecular absorption as a signature for intermolecular delocalization, much higher optical dichroism was obtained in TES-pentacene (16 ± 6) than TIPS-pentacene (3.2 ± 0.1), which was attributed to the 1D packing structure of TES-pentacene compared to the 2D packing structure of TIPS-pentacene. This result was also supported by field-effect mobility anisotropy measurements of the films, with TES-pentacene exhibiting a higher anisotropy (∼21-47, depending on the casting speed) than TIPS-pentacene (∼3-10).

Organic semiconductors including conjugated polymers and fullerenes continue to demonstrate promising potential for application in low-cost, printable solar cells. Power conversion efficiencies are now approaching 10 %, and major attention is increasingly turning towards identifying and overcoming the degradation mechanisms that limit the device lifetime. Recent advances in the performance of organic photovoltaics have largely arisen through the development of novel molecular structures using a donor-acceptor copolymer motif. Copolymers incorporating diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) units have attracted strong widespread interest, but the main role of this unit in the optoelectronic properties and device performance is not yet clear. This work investigates the natures of the main optical absorption transitions of DPP-based copolymers and chal-lenges the assumption that the DPP-unit behaves as a traditional acceptor unit. This insight leads to a clearer understanding of the excitation energy dependent photodegradation mechanism of the materials, providing ways to improve the operational stability of DPP-based solar cells. ABSTRACTDonor-acceptor copolymers are an important class of conjugated polymer on account of their chemically tunable energy levels and ambipolar charge transport properties. These materials typically exhibit two strong absorption bands in the UV-visible range, whose natures have previously been explored using theoretical analyses. In this work, we experimentally elucidate the electronic origins of these transitions and consider their effects on photostability using resonant Raman spectroscopy and transient absorption spectroscopy. In particular, we identify two dominant electronic transitions for a material comprising diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) acceptor and selenophene donor units: a strong transition at low energy (520-1150 nm) that is localised within the DPP unit, and a much weaker transition at higher energy (320-520 nm) that is delocalised along the conjugated backbone of both the DPP and selenophene units. The polymer is found to have good photostability under prolonged excitation in the low energy absorption band, but is much less stable to higher energy excitation. In this latter case, the selenophene ring is identified as the photodegradation site. These effects are correlated with ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy results, which associate the photodegradation with a higher yield of polaron pairs arising from excitation of the higher energy transition. Our findings provide insight into the design of photostable low energy gap conjugated copolymers for application in organic photovoltaic devices and demonstrate a specific vulnerability of the selenophene donor unit.

Circularly polarized (CP) electroluminescence has been demonstrated as a strategy to improve the performance of organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. CP emission can be generated from both small molecule and polymer OLEDs (SM-OLEDs and PLEDs), but to date, these devices suffer from low dissymmetry factors (g-factor <0.1), poor device performance, or a combination of the two. Here, we demonstrate the first CP-PLED employing an inverted device architecture.