Efficient construction of 2D and 3D polyaryls for molecular (opto)electronics (Staggarenes)

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This project will demonstrate a widely applicable bottom-up strategy for delivery of new classes of organic materials with potential widespread application in important technological areas. Organic electronics, photonics and optoelectronics have already made huge impact on our everyday lives and there remains significant further potential. Organic components provide multiple crucial functions in electronic and display devices, lighting, batteries, conductive inks etc. The global market is huge and expanding (>$150 Bn), not least because of their versatility and relatively low environmental impact. Their importance as components in solar energy capture is growing and likely to be crucial for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Organic materials do have drawbacks. High purity materials are needed and both synthesis (especially at reasonable scale) and stability can be a problem. We aim to address these issues in parallel, by designing new, stable materials based on synthesis protocols that can be repeated, or easily adapted, to rapidly and reproducibly deliver optimised systems. The molecules we target can be viewed as individual and discrete fragments of graphene, the wonder material of the 21st century. In our approach we first build the molecular sheet through the sequential addition of 3-ring (anthracene) units in an offset (staggered) fashion. The sheets will be extended laterally by other new chemistry in a manner that can theoretically iterate indefinitely. Separately, a strategy will be developed to bend the sheets and link the ends to form a discrete tube (a carbon nanotube fragment). The new materials will be evaluated by characterising their photophysical properties with a view to selecting optimum derivatives for translation to application through additional collaborations.