We
fabricated hybrid poly(3-hexylthiophene) nanofibers (P3HT NFs)
with rigid backbone organization through the self-assembly of P3HT
tethered to gold NPs (P3HT-Au NPs) in an azeotropic mixture of tetrahydrofuran
and chloroform. We found that the rigidity of the P3HT chains derives
from the tethering of the P3HT chains to the Au NPs and the control
of the solubility of P3HT in the solvent. This unique nanostructure
of hybrid P3HT NFs self-assembled in an azeotropic mixture exhibits
significantly increased delocalization of singlet (S1)
excitons compared to those of pristine and hybrid P3HT NFs self-assembled
in a poor solvent for P3HT. This strategy for the self-assembly of
P3HT-Au NPs that generate long-lived S1 excitons can also
be applied to other crystalline conjugated polymers and NPs in various
solvents and thus enables improvements in the efficiency of optoelectronic
devices.
Application‐oriented patterned growth of organic semiconductor (OSC) thin films with single crystalline domains is crucial for fabricating sophisticated high‐performance organic‐electronic and optoelectronic devices; however, fabricating these patterned nanometer‐thick crystals in a simple, fast, and effective manner is a difficult task with a roll‐to‐roll printing process. Here, a simple bar‐coating approach to form an array of single‐crystal‐like OSC thin‐film patterns at a rate of a few millimeters per second is introduced. To this end, the processing parameters of a gap‐controlled bar‐coating method is optimized, including coating speed, crystal nucleation, and solution fluidics, which allow a high degree of morphological control of bar‐coated OSC films in an area of several centimeters. In particular, it is demonstrated that the solutal‐Marangoni flow induced by a suitable solvent additive can considerably improve molecular mass transport and induce favorable vertical phase separation. Thus, organic transistors based on the OSC patterns fabricated with the additive‐assisted bar coating show a field‐effect mobility of up to 20 cm2 V−1 s−1 and superior operational stability. The proposed bar coating method will facilitate an industry‐level application of organic electronics.
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.
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