International Collaboration in Chemistry: A New Molecular Architecture for Organic Electronics

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In this cooperative project, we focus on new molecular architectures based on organized growth of organic semiconductors on nanoscale devices through directed vertical stacking of bifunctional oligoarenes using organometallic complex linkers. In particular, a dense, organized monolayer of sexithiophene bisphosphonate will be grown on a silicon dioxide/silicon substrate. Organized vertical growth will be initiated by exposure of this monolayer to vapor of a simple organometallic to serve as a nucleation site for the growth of a second layer of the bisphosphonate. This process will be repeated until growth of a sufficient number of molecular layers has been achieved to close the electrode-electrode nanoscale gap in novel silicon-based transistor platforms. It is proposed that a high degree of molecular order will be realized in the sexithiophene semiconductor ensemble to enable a high degree of vertical and lateral carrier mobility. A similar series of investigations will be done on pentacene bisphosphonates. The grown stacked molecular layers will be characterized using different surface analysis techniques, before the functionalization protocol is to be transferred onto the nanostructured devices. Finally, the novel hybrid molecular devices will be investigated regarding their electronic transport properties (transistor characteristics: I-V, transfer characteristics, transconductance), as function of silicon and silicon-oxide material properties, channel length, gate voltage, temperature and incident light (photoconductivity). At a later stage of the project the sexithiophene moieties of the stacked layers will be varied in chemical structure and electronic functionality to convert these typically p-type conductors to n-type ones.