Barrier-free (Ohmic) contacts are a key requirement for efficient organic optoelectronic devices, such as organic light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and field-effect transistors. Here, we propose a simple and robust way of forming an Ohmic hole contact on organic semiconductors with a high ionization energy (IE). The injected hole current from high-work-function metal-oxide electrodes is improved by more than an order of magnitude by using an interlayer for which the sole requirement is that it has a higher IE than the organic semiconductor. Insertion of the interlayer results in electrostatic decoupling of the electrode from the semiconductor and realignment of the Fermi level with the IE of the organic semiconductor. The Ohmic-contact formation is illustrated for a number of material combinations and solves the problem of hole injection into organic semiconductors with a high IE of up to 6 eV.

To create lowb and-gap,f luorescent, and elastic organic crystal emitters,w ef ocused on an extended pconjugated system based on:a )aplanar conformation,b) arigid structure,and c) controlled intermolecular interactions. Herein, we report on two fluorescent and highly flexible organic crystals (1 and 2)whichcould bend under an applied stress.T he bent crystals rapidly recover their straight shape upon release of the stress.C rystal 1 with at etrafluoropyridyl terminal unit and al ower band-gap energy (orange emission, l em = 573 nm, F F = 0.50), showed no bending mechanofluorochromism and had superior performance as an optical waveguide with reddish orange emission. The waveguide performance of the crystal did not decrease under bending stress.F or crystal 2 with ap entafluorophenyl terminal unit (green emission, l em = 500 nm, F F = 0.38), the original waveguide performance decreased under an applied bending stress; however,this crystal showed aunique bending mechanofluorochromism.

To devise a reliable strategy for achieving specific HOMO and LUMO energy level modulation via alternating donor‐acceptor monomer units, we investigate a series of conjugated polymers (CPs) in which the electron withdrawing power of the acceptor group is varied, while maintaining the same donor group and the same conjugated chain conformation. Through experiment and DFT calculations, good correlation is identified between the withdrawing strength of the acceptor group, the HOMO and LUMO levels, and the degree of orbital localization, which allows reliable design principles for CPs. Increasing the acceptor strength results in an enhanced charge transfer upon combination with a donor monomer and a more pronounced decrease of the LUMO level. Moreover, while HOMO states remain delocalized along the polymer chain, LUMO states are strongly localized at specific bonds within the acceptor group. The degree of LUMO localization increases with increasing polymer length, which results in a further drop of the LUMO level and converges to its final value when the number of repeat units reaches the characteristic conjugation length. Based on these insights we designed PBT8PT, which exhibits 6.78% power conversion efficiency after device optimization via the additive assisted annealing, demonstrating the effectiveness of our predictive design approach.

We have designed and synthesized a pyridine-based tripodal anchor unit to construct a single-molecule junction with a gold electrode. The advantage of tripodal anchoring to a gold surface was unambiguously demonstrated by cyclic voltammetry measurements. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements indicated that the π orbital of pyridine contributes to the physical adsorption of the tripodal anchor unit to the gold surface. The conductance of a single-molecule junction that consists of the tripodal anchor and diphenyl acetylene was measured by modified scanning tunneling microscope techniques and successfully determined to be 5 ± 1 × 10(-4)G(0). Finally, by analyzing the transport mechanism based on ab initio calculations, the participation of the π orbital of the anchor moieties was predicted. The tripodal structure is expected to form a robust junction, and pyridine is predicted to achieve π-channel electric transport.

An electronegative conjugated compound composed of a newly designed carbonyl‐bridged bithiazole unit and trifluoroacetyl terminal groups is synthesized as a candidate for air‐stable n‐type organic field‐effect transistor (OFET) materials. Cyclic voltammetry measurements reveal that carbonyl‐bridging contributes both to lowering the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy level and to stabilizing the anionic species. X‐ray crystallographic analysis of the compound shows a planar molecular geometry and a dense molecular packing, which is advantageous to electron transport. Through these appropriate electrochemical properties and structures for n‐type semiconductor materials, OFET devices based on this compound show electron mobilities as high as 0.06 cm2 V−1 s−1 with on/off ratios of 106 and threshold voltages of 20 V under vacuum conditions. Furthermore, these devices show the same order of electron mobility under ambient conditions.

A ruthenium-catalyzed carbonylation at a C-H bond in a benzene ring is described. The reaction of pyridylbenzenes with CO (20 atm) and ethylene in toluene at 160 degrees C in the presence of a catalytic amount of Ru(3)(CO)(12) results in propionylation at an ortho C-H bond in the benzene ring. Carbonylation does not occur at the pyridine ring, although this is necessary as a directing group to promote the reaction. Olefins such as trimethylvinylsilane and tert-butylethylene in place of ethylene can also be used in this reaction, however 1-hexene, cyclohexene, allyltrimethylsilane, styrene, methyl methacrylate, vinyl acetate, triethoxyvinylsilane, and isopropenyltrimethylsilane do not afford the coupling products. Transition metal complexes, other than ruthenium carbonyl, examined thus far, do not show catalytic activity. In the reaction of meta-substituted pyridylbenzenes, such as those having Me, OMe, CF(3), and COOMe group at the meta position in the benzene ring, carbonylation takes place at the less hindered C-H bond exclusively, irrespective of the electronic nature of the substituents. It is apparent that steric factors are more important for the control of regioselectivity. The reaction is also applicable to naphthyl and thienyl rings. Six-membered heterocycles, such as 2-pyrimidine and 4-pyrimidine, are also effective directing groups for carbonylation at a C-H bond in the benzene ring. The present reaction represents the first, effective catalytic carbonylation reaction involving cleavage of the benzene C-H bond.

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New donor–acceptor-type copolymers containing dioxocycloalkene-annelated thiophenes as electron-accepting units have been designed and synthesized for application to p-type organic semiconducting materials in organic photovoltaics. The investigation of their photophysical and electrochemical properties revealed that these copolymers possessed low optical bandgaps (from 1.63 to 1.92 eV) and low-lying HOMO energy levels (from −5.41 to −5.33 eV). Organic field-effect transistor measurements revealed that these copolymers had hole-transporting characteristics with mobilities on the order of 10–7–10–4 cm2 V–1 s–1. The bulk-heterojunction photovoltaic devices fabricated from blends of these copolymers with fullerene derivatives as acceptors showed high power conversion efficiencies of up to 4.87%, with an open-circuit voltage of 0.90 V, a short-circuit current of 11.46 mA cm–2, and a fill factor of 0.48 under air mass 1.5 simulated solar illumination.