Abstract
Chiral molecules exist as pairs of nonsuperimposable mirror images; a fundamental symmetry property vastly underexplored in organic electronic devices. Here, we show that organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) made from the helically chiral molecule 1-aza[6]helicene can display up to an 80-fold difference in hole mobility, together with differences in thin-film photophysics and morphology, solely depending on whether a single handedness or a 1:1 mixture of left- and right-handed molecules is employed under analogous fabrication conditions. As the molecular properties of either mirror image isomer are identical, these changes must be a result of the different bulk packing induced by chiral composition. Such underlying structures are investigated using crystal structure prediction, a computational methodology rarely applied to molecular materials, and linked to the difference in charge transport. These results illustrate that chirality may be used as a key tuning parameter in future device applications.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 8329-8338 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | ACS Nano |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 22 Aug 2017 |
Keywords
- chirality
- circular polarization
- helicene
- organic semiconductor
- self-assembling
- structure prediction
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Materials Science
- General Engineering
- General Physics and Astronomy
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