Haena Kim

Enhancing 2D growth of organic semiconductor thin films with macroporous structures via a small-molecule heterointerface

The physical structure of an organic solid is strongly affected by the surface of the underlying substrate. Controlling this interface is an important issue to improve device performance in the organic electronics community. Here we report an approach that utilizes an organic heterointerface to improve the crystallinity and control the morphology of an organic thin film. Pentacene is used as an active layer above, and m-bis(triphenylsilyl)benzene is used as the bottom layer. Sequential evaporations of these materials result in extraordinary morphology with far fewer grain boundaries and myriad nanometre-sized pores. These peculiar structures are formed by difference in molecular interactions between the organic layers and the substrate surface. The pentacene film exhibits high mobility up to 6.3 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), and the pore-rich structure improves the sensitivity of organic-transistor-based chemical sensors. Our approach opens a new way for the fabrication of nanostructured semiconducting layers towards high-performance organic electronics.

Donor–Acceptor Alternating Copolymer Nanowires for Highly Efficient Organic Solar Cells

A donor-acceptor conjugated copolymer enables the formation of nanowire systems that can be successfully introduced into bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells. A simple binary solvent mixture that makes polarity control possible allows kinetic control over the self-assembly of the crystalline polymer into a nanowire structure during the film-forming process. The enhanced photoconductivity of the nanowire-embedded photoactive layer efficiently facilitates photon harvesting in the solar cells. The resultant maximum power conversion efficiency is 8.2% in a conventional single-cell structure, revealing a 60% higher performance than in devices without nanowires.

Evaporation‐Induced Self‐Alignment and Transfer of Semiconductor Nanowires by Wrinkled Elastomeric Templates

The evaporation-induced self-alignment of semiconductor nanowires is achieved using wrinkled elastomeric templates. The wrinkled templates, which have a surface topography that can be tuned via changes in the mechanical strain, are used as both a template to align the nanowires and as a stamp to transfer the aligned nanowires to target substrates.

Multifunctional layer-by-layer self-assembly of conducting polymers and magnetic nanoparticles

Multifunctional thin films having both electrical conductivity and ferrimagnetic properties were successfully fabricated by the layer-by-layer self-assembling (LBL-SA) method, i.e. successive ionic adsorption of polypyrrole (PPy) and ferrite nanoparticles from their aqueous solutions. Using an ellipsometer, a constant increase of the film thickness by each deposition was characterized, implying a controllable process of the LBL-SA for multifunctional thin films. Uniformly distributed ferrite nanoparticles in the thin film were also observed in scanning and transmission electron microscopic images. The thin film consisting of six PPy and two ferrite nanoparticle layers had a conductivity of 0.18 S/cm and simultaneously showed a magnetic hysteresis.

Extremely efficient liquid exfoliation and dispersion of layered materials by unusual acoustic cavitation.

Layered materials must be exfoliated and dispersed in solvents for diverse applications. Usually, highly energetic probe sonication may be considered to be an unfavourable method for the less defective exfoliation and dispersion of layered materials. Here we show that judicious use of ultrasonic cavitation can produce exfoliated transition metal dichalcogenide nanosheets extraordinarily dispersed in non-toxic solvent by minimising the sonolysis of solvent molecules. Our method can also lead to produce less defective, large graphene oxide nanosheets from graphite oxide in a short time (within 10 min), which show high electrical conductivity (>20,000 S m−1) of the printed film. This was achieved by adjusting the ultrasonic probe depth to the liquid surface to generate less energetic cavitation (delivered power ~6 W), while maintaining sufficient acoustic shearing (0.73 m s−1) and generating additional microbubbling by aeration at the liquid surface.

Organic solar cells based on three-dimensionally percolated polythiophene nanowires with enhanced charge transport.

The influence of micrometer-scale poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) nanowires (NWs) and P3HT nanocrystals (NCs) on the photocurrent generation in photoactive layers having various thickness values was investigated. Self-organizing P3HT NWs were fabricated using a marginal solvent. Transmission electron microtomography was used to characterize the vertical and horizontal crystalline morphologies of the NWs and their intergrain percolation networks in the active layers. The interpenetrating P3HT NWs promoted charge transport, as demonstrated by the enhanced percolation probability and the reduction in bimolecular recombination. The photovoltaic performances were enhanced as the photoactive layer thickness increased because internal quantum efficiencies of the solar devices prepared with active layers having NWs were maintained with varying thicknesses, suggesting that the conversion of absorbed photons into a photocurrent proceeded efficiently. By contrast, the photovoltaic performances of an NC-only photoactive layer were reduced by the increase in thickness due to its poorly developed percolation pathways. The incorporation of P3HT NWs into the P3HT:indene-C60 bisadduct photoactive layers yielded a device power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.42%, and the photocurrent did not decrease significantly up to a thickness of 600 nm, resulting in a PCE of 3.75%, 70% of the maximum PCE of 5.42%.

Doping Graphene with an Atomically Thin Two Dimensional Molecular Layer

Atomically thin and chemically versatile GO sheets are used as p-type dopants of CVD-graphene. This method enables the strong, stable, large-scale, low-temperature, and controllable p-doping of graphene with preserved charge mobility, intrinsic roughness, and transmittance.

Sheet Size-Induced Evaporation Behaviors of Inkjet-Printed Graphene Oxide for Printed Electronics

The size of chemically modified graphene nanosheets is a critical parameter that affects their performance and applications. Here, we show that the lateral size of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets is strongly correlated with the concentration of graphite oxide present in the suspension as graphite oxide is exfoliated by sonication. The size of the GO nanosheets increased from less than 100 nm to several micrometers as the concentration of graphite oxide in the suspension was increased up to a critical concentration. An investigation of the evaporation behavior of the GO nanosheet solution using inkjet printing revealed that the critical temperature of formation of a uniform film, T(c), was lower for the large GO nanosheets than for the small GO nanosheets. This difference was attributed to the interactions between the two-dimensional structures of GO nanosheets and the substrate as well as the interactions among the GO nanosheets. Furthermore, we fabricated organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) using line-patterned reduced GO as electrodes. The OTFTs displayed different electrical performances, depending on the graphene sheet size. We believe that our new strategy to control the size of GO nanosheets and our findings about the colloidal and electrical properties of size-controlled GO nanosheets will be very effective to fabricate graphene based printed electronics.

Controllable Bipolar Doping of Graphene with 2D Molecular Dopants

The fine control of graphene doping levels over a wide energy range remains a challenging issue for the electronic applications of graphene. Here, the controllable doping of chemical vapor deposited graphene, which provides a wide range of energy levels (shifts up to ± 0.5 eV), is demonstrated through physical contact with chemically versatile graphene oxide (GO) sheets, a 2D dopant that can be solution-processed. GO sheets are a p-type dopant due to their abundance of electron-withdrawing functional groups. To expand the energy window of GO-doped graphene, the GO surface is chemically modified with electron-donating ethylene diamine molecules. The amine-functionalized GO sheets exhibit strong n-type doping behaviors. In addition, the particular physicochemical characteristics of the GO sheets, namely their sheet sizes, number of layers, and degree of oxidation and amine functionality, are systematically varied to finely tune their energy levels. Finally, the tailor-made GO sheet dopants are applied into graphene-based electronic devices, which are found to exhibit improved device performances. These results demonstrate the potential of GO sheet dopants in many graphene-based electronics applications.