Unconventional Nanofabrication for Supramolecular Electronics

Abstract

The tremendous scientific effort devoted to achieving a full control over the correlation between structure and function in organic and polymer electronics, has prompted the use of supramolecular interactions to drive the formation of highly ordered functional assemblies, which have been integrated into real devices. Such endeavour gave birth to the field of supramolecular electronics. In this regard, self-assembly of organic semiconducting materials constitutes a most powerful tool to generate low-dimensional and crystalline functional architectures. These include 1D nanostructures (nanoribbons, nanotubes, and nanowires) and 2D molecular crystals with tuneable and unique optical, electronic and mechanical properties. Optimizing the (opto-)electronic properties of organic semiconducting materials is imperative to harness such supramolecular structures as active components for supramolecular electronics. However, their integration in real devices currently represents a significant challenge to the advancement of (opto)electronics. In this progress report, we provide an overview of the unconventional nanofabrication techniques and device configurations, which were devised during the last decade, to enable supramolecular electronics to become a real technology. In particular, we will highlight how single and multiple supramolecular fibers and gels as well as supramolecularly engineered 2D materials can be integrated into novel vertical or horizontal junctions to realize flexible and high-density multifunctional transistors, photodetectors and memristors, exhibiting a set of new properties and excelling in their performances. China.

Conductive Self-Assembled Monolayers of Paramagnetic {CoIICo4III} and {Co4IICo2III} Coordination Clusters on Gold Surfaces

“…The implementation of metal coordination complexes with specific paramagnetic and/or redox properties as single molecules or as constituents of two-dimensional molecular monolayers (Yao et al, 2019) into computer memory cells (Linnenberg et al, 2018) is a promising way to keep the miniaturization and sustainability of electronic components from colliding with the so-called “quantum limit” (sub-10-nm regime) valid. At both these levels of molecule–surface interfaces, preservation of the main molecular characteristics (Mitcov et al, 2019) as identified in the bulk state, and avoidance of the agglomerative behavior of coordination compounds after their immobilization on solid support constitute important milestones in the controlled (micro-)spectroscopic addressing of the tunnel junction structures of molecule–electrode hybrid devices.…”

Organic photodetectors based on supramolecular nanostructures

“…20,30 During the past decades, both specific processing methods such as physical vapor deposition, solution epitaxy, solvent phase transfer, solvent-induced precipitation, and solvent vapor diffusion as well as post-processing procedures like solvent vapor annealing have been exploited to drive the self-assembly π-conjugated organic materials toward the formation of high-quality supramolecular nanostructures under mild conditions. 21,31 Self-assembly enables to reduce the amount of structural defects by increasing the degree of crystallinity of the nanostructures. Importantly, the size, degree of crystallinity, and flexibility of the obtained nanostructure as well as its numerous physical properties could be tuned by changing the growth parameters, like concentration, solvent type, growth time, temperature, and so forth.…”

“…In such a thermodynamically governed self-assembly process, semiconducting organic molecules with rigid and large π-conjugated core can self-organize into boundary-free and crystalline zero-dimensional (0D), one-dimensional (1D), and two-dimensional (2D) nanostructures. 20,21 OSSNs with mesoscopic dimension (hundreds of nanometers to micrometers) can fully exploit the intrinsic characteristics of functional organic nanostructures beyond the limitation of isolated organic molecules. By taking full advantage of these structural and electronic features, during the past decades, highly sensitive and low-cost photodetectors based on OSSNs have been developed.…”

Directed Self-Assembly of Polystyrene Nanospheres by Direct Laser-Writing Lithography

“…The former was carried out by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), whereas the NSs ordering was evaluated through an image-processing method measuring the domains orientation. These analyses contribute to increase the repeatability of NSL and expand its applicability through DSA to address the necessities of the development of novel devices for photonics [17], chemical sensing [18,19], data storage [20], and optoelectronics [21].…”