The field of organic electronics has been prolific in the last couple of years, leading to the design and synthesis of several molecular semiconductors presenting a mobility in excess of 10 cm2 V−1 s−1. However, it is also started to recently falter, as a result of doubtful mobility extractions and reduced industrial interest. This critical review addresses the community of chemists and materials scientists to share with it a critical analysis of the best performing molecular semiconductors and of the inherent charge transport physics that takes place in them. The goal is to inspire chemists and materials scientists and to give them hope that the field of molecular semiconductors for logic operations is not engaged into a dead end. To the contrary, it offers plenty of research opportunities in materials chemistry.

International audienceNanostructured hybrid silicas, in which covalently anchored aromatic thiols are regularly distributed over the pores, enable a dramatic increase in the half-lives of the corresponding arylsulfanyl radicals. This enhancement is not only due to limited diffusion but also to the structure of the organic monolayer on the surface of the pores. Molecular dynamics modeling shows that at high loadings, in spite of their spatial vicinity, supramolecular interactions disfavor the coupling of arylsulfanyl radicals. As compared to phenylsulfanyl radical in solution, the half-life measured at 293 K can be increased by 9 orders of magnitude to reach 65 h

Magnetic Resonance Imaging combined with hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents produced via dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization can, non-invasively and in real-time, report on tissue specific aberrant metabolism. However, hyperpolarization equipment is expensive, technically demanding and needs to be installed on-site for the end-user. In this work, we provide a robust methodology that allows remote production of the hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents. The methodology, built on photo-induced thermally labile radicals, allows solid sample extraction from the hyperpolarization equipment and several hours’ lifetime of the 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents at appropriate storage/transport conditions. Exemplified with [U-13C, d7]-D-glucose, we remotely produce hyperpolarized 13C-labelled metabolic contrast agents and generate above 10,000-fold liquid-state Magnetic Resonance signal enhancement at 9.4 T, keeping on-site only a simple dissolution device.