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Design, Synthesis, and Crystal Engineering of High Mobility, Solution Processable Organic Semiconductors

Anthony Petty will be presenting his exit seminar: Design, Synthesis, and Crystal Engineering of High Mobility, Solution Processable Organic Semiconductors.

Abstract: Transistors fabricated from organic materials provide an interesting alternative to traditional silicon-based devices[1]. Soluble organic semiconductors are amenable to low temperature solution processing, which could allow for electronic devices to be fabricated on a variety of substrates including paper[2] and plastic[3]. Here an aromatic core molecule containing a solubilizing group is flanked with π-conjugated pendants, which lends the molecule a high degree of stability while also providing a significant unhindered π-surface to allow for π-stacking, which is the key component for highmobility charge transport[4]. After screening various pendant groups, the selected combination of core and pendant is subjected to successive iterations of crystal engineering via fluorination and tuning of the solubilizing alkyl group, which has resulted in a drastic increase in mobility, from 0.015 cm2/V·s to 13 cm2/V·s, putting it on par with some of the best solution processable organic semiconductors developed so far. This ~850 fold improvement in device performance can be attributed to sub-angstrom level differences in the way different derivatives pack in the solid state. The synthesis, solidstate characterization, and device performance of these molecules will be presented along with emerging structure-function relationships, which could inform the design of new organic semiconductors.

Faculty Advisor: Dr. John Anthony