High-mobility semiconducting polymers offer the opportunity to develop flexible and large-area electronics for several applications, including wearable, portable and distributed sensors, monitoring and actuating devices. An enabler of this technology is a scalable printing process achieving uniform electrical performances over large area. As opposed to the deposition of highly crystalline films, orientational alignment of polymer chains, albeit commonly achieved by non-scalable/slow bulk alignment schemes, is a more robust approach towards large-area electronics. By combining pre-aggregating solvents for formulating the semiconductor and by adopting a room temperature wired bar-coating technique, here we demonstrate the fast deposition of submonolayers and nanostructured films of a model electron-transporting polymer. Our approach enables directional self-assembling of polymer chains exhibiting large transport anisotropy and a mobility up to 6.4 cm2 V−1 s−1, allowing very simple device architectures to operate at 3.3 MHz. Thus, the proposed deposition strategy is exceptionally promising for mass manufacturing of high-performance polymer circuits.

Substituted side chains are fundamental units in solution processable organic semiconductors in order to achieve a balance of close intermolecular stacking, high crystallinity, and good compatibility with different wet techniques. Based on four air-stable solution-processed naphthalene diimides fused with 2-(1,3-dithiol-2-ylidene)malononitrile groups (NDI-DTYM2) that bear branched alkyl chains with varied side-chain length and different branching position, we have carried out systematic studies on the relationship between film microstructure and charge transport in their organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs). In particular synchrotron measurements (grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure) are combined with device optimization studies to probe the interplay between molecular structure, molecular packing, and OTFT mobility. It is found that the side-chain length has a moderate influence on thin-film microstructure but leads to only limited changes in OTFT performance. In contrast, the position of branching point results in subtle, yet critical changes in molecular packing and leads to dramatic differences in electron mobility ranging from ~0.001 to >3.0 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). Incorporating a NDI-DTYM2 core with three-branched N-alkyl substituents of C(11,6) results in a dense in-plane molecular packing with an unit cell area of 127 Å(2), larger domain sizes of up to 1000 × 3000 nm(2), and an electron mobility of up to 3.50 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), which is an unprecedented value for ambient stable n-channel solution-processed OTFTs reported to date. These results demonstrate that variation of the alkyl chain branching point is a powerful strategy for tuning of molecular packing to enable high charge transport mobilities.

Scanning transmission X-ray microscopy has been used to quantitatively map the composition of P3HT:PCBM blend films in the vicinity of PCBM crystals formed during annealing at 140 °C. The observed PCBM concentration profiles around these crystals have been fitted to Fick’s second law of diffusion and the diffusion constant found to be 2.5 × 10−14 m2 s−1. The PCBM concentration at the crystal boundary was found to be 19% (v/v) and is interpreted, together with the annealing temperature of 140 °C, as a point on the bimodal line of the composition−temperature phase diagram. The diffusion of PCBM through P3HT is observed to be bulk-dominated, in contrast to the surface/interface-dominated diffusion observed in MDMO-PPV:PCBM blend films by Yang et al. ,

The molecular orientation and microstructure of films of the high-mobility semiconducting polymer poly(N,N-bis-2-octyldodecylnaphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis-dicarboximide-2,6-diyl-alt-5,5-2,2-bithiophene) (P(NDI2OD-T2)) are probed using a combination of grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) and near-edge X-ray absorption fine-structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy. In particular a novel approach is used whereby the bulk molecular orientation and surface molecular orientation are simultaneously measured on the same sample using NEXAFS spectroscopy in an angle-resolved transmission experiment. Furthermore, the acquisition of bulk-sensitive NEXAFS data enables a direct comparison of the information provided by GIWAXS and NEXAFS. By comparison of the bulk-sensitive and surface-sensitive NEXAFS data, a distinctly different molecular orientation is observed at the surface of the film compared to the bulk. While a more "face-on" orientation of the conjugated backbone is observed in the bulk of the film, consistent with the lamella orientation observed by GIWAXS, a more "edge-on" orientation is observed at the surface of the film with surface-sensitive NEXAFS spectroscopy. This distinct edge-on surface orientation explains the high in-plane mobility that is achieved in top-gate P(NDI2OD-T2) field-effect transistors (FETs), while the bulk face-on texture explains the high out-of-plane mobilities that are observed in time-of-flight and diode measurements. These results also stress that GIWAXS lacks the surface sensitivity required to probe the microstructure of the accumulation layer that supports charge transport in organic FETs and hence may not necessarily be appropriate for correlating film microstructure and FET charge transport.

Hydrogen peroxide produced by electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction provides a potentially cost effective and energy efficient alternative to the industrial anthraquinone process. In this study, we demonstrate that by modulating the oxygen functional groups near the atomically dispersed cobalt sites with proper electrochemical/chemical treatments, a highly active and selective oxygen reduction process for hydrogen peroxide production can be obtained in acidic electrolyte, showing a negligible amount of onset overpotential and nearly 100% selectivity within a wide range of applied potentials. Combined spectroscopic results reveal that the exceptionally enhanced performance of hydrogen peroxide generation originates from the presence of epoxy groups near the CoN 4 centers, which has resulted in the modification of the electronic structure of the cobalt atoms. Computational modeling demonstrates these electronically modified cobalt atoms will enhance the hydrogen peroxide productivity during oxygen reduction reaction in acid, providing insights into the design of electroactive materials for effective peroxide production.

Synchrotron XPS was used to investigate a series of chemically-synthesised, atomically-precise gold clusters Au(n)(PPh(3))(y) (n = 8, 9, 11 and 101, with y depending on cluster size) immobilized on titania nanoparticles. The gold clusters were washed with toluene at 100 °C or calcined at 200 °C to remove the organic ligand. From the position of the Au 4f(7/2) peak it is concluded that cluster size is not altered through the deposition. From the analysis of the phosphorous spectra, it can be concluded that the applied heat treatment removes the organic ligands. Washing and calcination leads to partial oxidation and partial agglomeration of the clusters. Oxidation of the clusters is most likely due to the interaction of the cluster core with the oxygen of the titania surface after removal of ligands. The position of the Au 4f(7/2) peak indicates that the size of the agglomerated clusters is still smaller than that of Au(101).

The cycle life of aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) is limited by the notable challenges of cathode dissolution, water reactivity, and zinc dendrites. Here, it is demonstrated that by tuning the electrolyte solvation structure, the issues for both the electrodes and the electrolyte can be addressed simultaneously. Specifically, a fire-retardant triethyl phosphate (TEP) is demonstrated as a cosolvent with strong solvating ability in a nonaqueous/aqueous hybrid electrolyte. The TEP features a higher donor number (26 kcal mol −1 ) than H 2 O (18 kcal mol −1 ), preferring to form a TEP occupied inner solvation sheath around Zn 2+ and strong hydrogen bonding with H 2 O. The TEP coordinated electrolyte structure can inhibit the reactivity of H 2 O with V 2 O 5 and leads to a robust polymeric-inorganic interphase (poly-ZnP 2 O 6 and ZnF 2 ) on zinc anode effectively preventing the dendrite growth and parasitic water reaction. With such an optimized electrolyte, the Zn/Cu cells perform high average Coulombic efficiency of 99.5%, and the full cell with a low capacity ratio of Zn:V 2 O 5 (2:1) and lean electrolyte (11.5 g Ah −1 ) delivers a reversible capacity of 250 mAh g −1 for over 1000 cycles at 5 A g −1 . This study highlights the promise of a successful electrolyte regulation strategy for the development of highperformance and practical ZIBs.

This publication investigates the microstructure of the high electron mobility polymer poly([N,N 0 -bis(2-octyldodecyl)-11 naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]-alt-5,5 0 -(2,2 0 -12 biothiopene)) (P(NDI2OD-T2)) using a combination of grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD), near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS), and optical spectroscopies. GIXD measurements confirm extended in-plane lamellae ordering and out-of-plane π-π stacking. Angle-resolved surface-sensitive NEXAFS measurements, however, indicate a lack of preferred in-plane or out-of-plane orientation of either the conjugated backbone or side chains at the P(NDI2OD-T2) film surface. This lack of pronounced orientation effects is attributed to a significant proportion of amorphous content in the film, with NEXAFS measurements sensitive to both amorphous and crystalline content while GIXD is sensitive only to coherent ordering. Furthermore, it is found that increased crystallinity in annealed thin films is not beneficial to the performance of top-gate bottom-contact field-effect transistors. In fact, both highly crystalline and amorphous P(NDI2OD-T2) devices exhibit similar device performance with saturation mobilities around 0.04 and 0.02 cm 2 /(V s), respectively, almost 1 order of magnitude lower than the high-performance devices where the pristine morphology has not been subjected to significant heat treatment. Changes in the optical absorption and Raman spectra of P(NDI2OD-T2) thin films with annealing are also presented and discussed.