Yumin Tang

(Semi)ladder-Type Bithiophene Imide-Based All-Acceptor Semiconductors: Synthesis, Structure–Property Correlations, and Unipolar n-Type Transistor Performance

Development of high-performance unipolar n-type organic semiconductors still remains as a great challenge. In this work, all-acceptor bithiophene imide-based ladder-type small molecules BTI n and semiladder-type homopolymers PBTI n ( n = 1-5) were synthesized, and their structure-property correlations were studied in depth. It was found that Pd-catalyzed Stille coupling is superior to Ni-mediated Yamamoto coupling to produce polymers with higher molecular weight and improved polymer quality, thus leading to greatly increased electron mobility (μe). Due to their all-acceptor backbone, these polymers all exhibit unipolar n-type transport in organic thin-film transistors, accompanied by low off-currents (10-10-10-9 A), large on/off current ratios (106), and small threshold voltages (∼15-25 V). The highest μe, up to 3.71 cm2 V-1 s-1, is attained from PBTI1 with the shortest monomer unit. As the monomer size is extended, the μe drops by 2 orders to 0.014 cm2 V-1 s-1 for PBTI5. This monotonic decrease of μe was also observed in their homologous BTI n small molecules. This trend of mobility decrease is in good agreement with the evolvement of disordered phases within the film, as revealed by Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements. The extension of the ladder-type building blocks appears to have a large impact on the motion freedom of the building blocks and the polymer chains during film formation, thus negatively affecting film morphology and charge carrier mobility. The result indicates that synthesizing building blocks with more extended ladder-type backbone does not necessarily lead to improved mobilities. This study marks a significant advance in the performance of all-acceptor-type polymers as unipolar electron transporting materials and provides useful guidelines for further development of (semi)ladder-type molecular and polymeric semiconductors for applications in organic electronics.

Dithienylbenzodiimide: a new electron-deficient unit for n-type polymer semiconductors

Inspired by the excellent device performance of imide-functionalized polymer semiconductors in organic electronics, a novel imide-based building block, dithienylbenzodiimide (TBDI), with fused backbone is designed and synthesized. Single-crystal structure analysis reveals that the TBDI unit features non-planar backbone conformation but with a tight π-stacking distance of 3.36 A. By copolymerizing with various electron-rich co-units, a series of TBDI-based polymer semiconductors is synthesized and the optoelectronic, thermal, electrochemical and charge transport properties of the semiconductors are characterized. Attributed to the non-planar backbone and intrinsic electrical property of TBDI, all polymers exhibit wide bandgaps (∼2.0 eV) with low-lying HOMOs (<−5.5 eV). Organic thin-film transistors are fabricated by incorporating the TBDI-based polymers as the active layer to investigate their charge transport properties. The dithienylbenzodiimide-bithiophene copolymer shows ambipolar transport characteristics with an electron and hole mobility of 0.15 and 0.015 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. By incorporating weaker electron donor co-units, the dithienylbenzodiimide–thiophene and dithienylbenzodiimide–difluorobithiophene copolymers exhibit unipolar n-channel transistor performance with electron mobility up to 0.11 and 0.34 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. Most high-performance n-channel polymer semiconductors reported to date typically show narrow bandgaps with high-lying HOMOs, resulting in substantial p-channel performance. The new TBDI-based wide bandgap polymers with low-lying HOMOs greatly suppress p-channel performance and lead to improved Ion/Ioff ratios. The excellent n-channel performance is attributed to the strong electron-withdrawing capability of imide groups, low-lying frontier molecular orbitals, compact π-stacking distance, and a high degree of film crystallinity as confirmed by GIWAXS analysis with distinct interlamellar and π-stacking diffraction patterns. The result reveals that a building block with non-planar backbone can be utilized for constructing high crystalline polymer semiconductors with substantial charge carrier mobility. The study indicates that dithienylbenzodiimide is a promising unit for synthesizing wide bandgap polymeric semiconductors with unipolar n-channel performance.

2,1,3-Benzothiadiazole-5,6-dicarboxylicimide-Based Polymer Semiconductors for Organic Thin-Film Transistors and Polymer Solar Cells

A series of polymer semiconductors incorporating 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole-5,6-dicarboxylicimide (BTZI) as strong electron-withdrawing unit and an alkoxy-functionalized head-to-head linkage containing bithiophene or bithiazole as highly electron-rich co-unit are designed and synthesized. Because of the strong intramolecular charge transfer characteristics, all three polymers BTZI-TRTOR (P1), BTZI-BTOR (P2), and BTZI-BTzOR (P3) exhibit narrow bandgaps of 1.13, 1.05, and 0.92 eV, respectively, resulting in a very broad absorption ranging from 350 to 1400 nm. The highly electron-deficient 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole-5,6-dicarboxylicimide and alkoxy-functionalized bithiophene (or thiazole) lead to polymers with low-lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (-3.96 to -4.28 eV) and high-lying highest occupied molecular orbitals (-5.01 to -5.20 eV). Hence, P1 and P3 show substantial and balanced ambipolar transport with electron mobilities/hole mobilities of up to 0.86/0.51 and 0.95/0.50 cm2 V-1 s-1, respectively, and polymer P2 containing the strongest donor unit exhibited unipolar p-type performance with an average hole mobility of 0.40 cm2 V-1 s-1 in top-gate/bottom-contact thin-film transistors with gold as the source and drain electrodes. When incorporated into bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells, the narrow bandgap (1.13 eV) polymer P1 shows an encouraging power conversion efficiency of 4.15% with a relatively large open-circuit voltage of 0.69 V, which corresponds to a remarkably small energy loss of 0.44 eV. The power conversion efficiency of P1 is among the highest reported to date with such a small energy loss in polymer:fullerene solar cells.

Cyano-substituted benzochalcogenadiazole-based polymer semiconductors for balanced ambipolar organic thin-film transistors

Due to their high-lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMOs), π-conjugated polymers based on benzothiadiazole and its derivatives typically are p-type. We report here the successful development of two narrow bandgap, ambipolar donor–acceptor copolymers, PDCNBT2T and PDCNBSe2T, which are based on new cyano-substituted strong electron acceptors, 4,7-dibromo-5,6-dicyano-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole (DCNBT) and 4,7-dibromo-5,6-dicyano-2,1,3-benzoselenadiazole (DCNBSe), respectively. Compared to their polymer analogues with fluorine substituents, the LUMO was lowered by a big margin of ca. 0.6 eV and the bandgap was reduced by 0.2–0.3 eV for the cyano-substituted polymers. Therefore, the cyano-substituted benzothiadiazole polymers showed very low-lying LUMO levels of ca. 4.3 eV. Benefiting from their narrow bandgaps of 1.1–1.2 eV and appropriately positioned LUMO levels, both polymers exhibit well balanced ambipolar transport characteristics in organic thin-film transistors, which differ from the p-type dominating transport properties of their fluorinated polymer analogues. A balanced hole/electron mobility of 0.59/0.47 cm2 V−1 s−1 was achieved for polymer PDCNBT2T, and a reduced hole/electron mobility of 0.018/0.014 cm2 V−1 s−1 was observed for the benzoselenadiazole-based PDCNBSe2T due to its lower crystallinity. These results show that the electron mobility can be enhanced by approximately two orders versus the electron mobility of the previously reported 4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)-5,6-dicyano-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole-based polymer. This improvement was achieved by using the new acceptor units without additional electron-rich thiophene flanks, which allow a higher degree of freedom in selecting the donor co-unit and more effective tuning of energy levels of frontier molecular orbitals.

Quinoxaline-Based Wide Band Gap Polymers for Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells with Large Open-Circuit Voltages

We present here a series of wide-band-gap ( Eg: >1.8 eV) polymer donors by incorporating thiophene-flanked phenylene as an electron-donating unit and quinoxaline as an electron-accepting co-unit to attain large open-circuit voltages ( Vocs) and short-circuit currents ( Jscs) in nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs). Fluorination was utilized to fine-tailor the energetics of polymer frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) by replacing a variable number of H atoms on the phenylene moiety with F. It was found that fluorination can effectively modulate the polymer backbone planarity through intramolecular noncovalent S···F and/or H···F interactions. Polymers (P2-P4) show an improved molecular packing with a favorable face-on orientation compared to their nonfluorinated analogue (P1), which is critical to charge carrier transport and collection. When mixed with IDIC, a nonfullerene acceptor, P3 with two F atoms, achieves a remarkable Voc of 1.00 V and a large Jsc of 15.99 mA/cm2, simultaneously, yielding a power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.7%. Notably, the 1.00 V Voc is among the largest values in the IDIC-based OSCs, leading to a small energy loss ( Eloss: 0.62 eV) while maintaining a large PCE. The P3:IDIC blend shows an efficient exciton dissociation through hole transfer even under a small energy offset of 0.16 eV. Further fluorination leads to the polymer P4 with increased chain-twisting and mismatched FMO levels with IDIC, showing the lowest PCE of 2.93%. The results demonstrate that quinoxaline-based copolymers are promising donors for efficient OSCs and the fluorination needs to be fine-adjusted to optimize the interchain packing and physicochemical properties of polymers. Additionally, the structure-property correlations from this work provide useful insights for developing wide-band-gap polymers with low-lying highest occupied molecular orbitals to minimize Eloss and maximize Voc in nonfullerene OSCs for efficient power conversion.

Polymer semiconductors incorporating head-to-head linked 4-alkoxy-5-(3-alkylthiophen-2-yl)thiazole

Head-to-head linked bithiophenes with planar backbones hold distinctive advantages for constructing organic semiconductors, such as good solubilizing capability, enabling narrow bandgap, and effective tuning of frontier molecular orbital (FMO) levels using minimal thiophene numbers. In order to realize planar backbone, alkoxy chains are typically installed on thiophene head positions, owing to the small van der Waals radius of oxygen atom and accompanying noncovalent S⋯O interaction. However, the strong electron donating alkoxy chains on the electron-rich thiophenes lead to elevated FMO levels, which are detrimental to material stability and device performance. Thus, a new design approach is needed to counterbalance the strong electron donating property of alkoxy chains to bring down the FMOs. In this study, we designed and synthesized a new head-to-head linked building block, 4-alkoxy-5-(3-alkylthiophen-2-yl)thiazole (TRTzOR), using an electron-deficient thiazole to replace the electron-rich thiophene. Compared to previously reported 3-alkoxy-3′-alkyl-2,2′-bithiophene (TRTOR), TRTzOR is a weaker electron donor, which considerably lowers FMOs and maintains planar backbone through the noncovalent S⋯O interaction. The new TRTzOR was copolymerized with benzothiadiazoles with distinct F numbers to yield a series of polymer semiconductors. Compared to TRTOR-based analogous polymers, these TRTzOR-based polymers have broader absorption up to 950 nm with lower-lying FMOs by 0.2–0.3 eV, and blending these polymers with PC71BM leads to polymer solar cells (PSCs) with improved open-circuit voltage (Voc) by ca. 0.1 V and a much smaller energy loss (Eloss) as low as 0.59 eV. These results demonstrate that thiazole substitution is an effective approach to tune FMO levels for realizing higher Vocs in PSCs and the small Eloss renders TRTzOR a promising building block for developing high-performance organic semiconductors.