(Bottom Left) Changing UV-vis spectra with temperature indicates assembly
(Bottom Right) Increased shuttling current with increased oxidation
Scientific Achievement
Organic semiconductors provide well-behaved charge transport in the solid state, but have not been studied in solution. Here, it is shown that upon chemical oxidation, hexabenzocoronenes (HBCs) enhance charge transport in non-aqueous electrolyte.
Significance and Impact
Organic semiconductors are used for charge transport in (opto)electronic, photovoltaic, and sensing technologies. By expanding their charge-transporting abilities to solution, they may be able to enhance solution-phase electrochemical devices such as redox flow batteries.
Research Details
- HBCs were synthesized, found to assemble into nanowires, and the band gap was measured by UV-vis and X-ray spectroscopy and calculated by DFT.
- Upon successive chemical oxidation, increased shuttling current was observed by cyclic voltammetry
Work performed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (JCESR partner) by L. C. H. Gerber, P. D. Frischmann, T. E. Williams, M. Tichelaar, E. Y. Tsai, Y.-S. Liu, J. Guo, C. D. Pemmaraju, D. Prendergast, B. A. Helms Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 5560.
DOI: 10.1039/c5py00639b
