Benzimidazolone-Dioxazine Pigments-Based Conjugated Polymers for Organic Field-Effect Transistor.

Molecules based on benzimidazolone-dioxazine are known as blue/violet pigments and have been commercialized for decades. However, unfavorable solubility limits the application of these structures as building blocks of conjugated polymers despite their low band gaps. Herein, a series of donor-acceptor conjugated polymers containing soluble benzimidazolone-dioxazine structures as the acceptors and oligothiophene as donors are synthesized and investigated. With increasing numbers of thiophene rings, the steric hindrance diminishes and high molecular weight polymers can be achieved, leading to an improved performance in organic field effect transistor devices. The hole mobility of polymers with three to six thiophene units is in the order of 10-1 cm2 V-1 s -1 . Among all the polymers, polymer P3 with three thiophene units between benzimidazolone-dioxazine structures shows the best hole mobility of 0.4 cm2 V-1 s -1 . Grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering results reveal that the high mobility of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) can be accredited by matched donor-acceptor packing in the solid thin films.

Li-Ion Capacitor Integrated with Nano-network-Structured Ni/NiO/C Anode and Nitrogen-Doped Carbonized Metal-Organic Framework Cathode with High Power and Long Cyclability.

Lithium-ion capacitors (LICs) represent a new type of energy-storage devices, which have combined merits of high energy density Li-ion battery and high power density supercapacitor. Nevertheless, one significant challenge for LICs is the imbalanced kinetics between the fast capacitive cathode and relatively slow intercalation anode that limit the energy-storage performance. Here, the asymmetric LIC devices were developed based on a nitrogen-doped, carbonized zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) cathode and a three-dimensional, nano-network-structured, conversion reaction-based Ni/NiO/C anode. These nanostructures associated with both the cathode and anode enable rapid electron and ions transport in the LIC devices, which allows the asymmetric LICs to be operated on either high energy mode (energy density of 114.7 Wh/kg at power density of 98.0 W/kg) or high power mode (power density of 60.1 kW/kg at energy density of 17.6 Wh/kg). The device also exhibited long-term cycle stability with 87% capacitance retention after 12 000 cycles. These results demonstrate that the rational design of nanoporous electrode structures can deliver a balanced, high-performance-activated cZIF-8|Ni/NiO/C-based lithium-ion capacitor.

S,N-Heteroacene-Based Copolymers for Highly Efficient Organic Field Effect Transistors and Organic Solar Cells: Critical Impact of Aromatic Subunits in the Ladder π-System.

Three novel donor-acceptor alternating polymers containing ladder-type pentacyclic heteroacenes (PBo, PBi, and PT) are synthesized, characterized, and further applied to organic field effect transistors (OFETs) and polymer solar cells. Significant aspects of quinoidal characters, electrochemical properties, optical absorption, frontier orbitals, backbone coplanarity, molecular orientation, charge carrier mobilities, morphology discrepancies, and the corresponding device performances are notably different with various heteroarenes. PT exhibits a stronger quinoidal mesomeric structure, linear and coplanar conformation, smooth surface morphology, and better bimodal crystalline structures, which is beneficial to extend the π-conjugation and promotes charge transport via 3-D transport pathways and in consequence improves overall device performances. Organic photovoltaics based on the PT polymer achieve a power conversion efficiency of 6.04% along with a high short-circuit current density (JSC) of 14.68 mA cm-2, and a high hole mobility of 0.1 cm2 V-1 s-1 is fulfilled in an OFET, which is superior to those of its counterparts, PBi and PBo.

High Performance Nonvolatile Transistor Memories Utilizing Functional Polyimide-Based Supramolecular Electrets.

We report pentacene-based organic field-effect transistor memory devices utilizing supramolecular electrets, consisting of a polyimide, PI(6FOH-ODPA), containing hydroxyl groups for hydrogen bonding with amine functionalized aromatic rings (AM) of 1-aniline (AM1), 2-naphthylamine (AM2), 2-aminoanthracene (AM3), and 1-aminopyrene (AM4). The effect of the phenyl ring size and composition of AM1-AM4 on the hole-trapping capability of the fabricated devices was investigated systematically. Under an operating voltage under ±40 V, the prepared devices using the electrets of 100 % AM1-AM4/PI ratios exhibited a memory window of 0, 8.59, 25.97, and 29.95 V, respectively, suggesting that the hole-trapping capability increased with enhancing phenyl ring size. The memory window was enhanced as the amount of AM in PI increased. Furthermore, the devices showed a long charge-retention time of 10(4)  s with an ON/OFF current ratio of around 10(3) -10(4) and multiple switching stability over 100 cycles. This study demonstrated that the electrical characteristics of the OFET memory devices could be manipulated through the chemical compositions of the supramolecular electrets.

Multilevel nonvolatile flexible organic field-effect transistor memories employing polyimide electrets with different charge-transfer effects.

The electrical memory characteristics of the n-channel organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) employing diverse polyimide (PI) electrets are reported. The synthesized PIs comprise identical electron donor and three different building blocks with gradually increasing electron-accepting ability. The distinct charge-transfer capabilities of these PIs result in varied type of memory behaviors from the write-one-read-many (WORM) to flash type. Finally, a prominent flexible WORM-type transistor memory is demonstrated and shows not only promising write-many-read-many (WMRM) multilevel data storage but also excellent mechanical and retention stability.