Radical New Materials for Electronics

近年来，有机材料制成的电子设备已经成为硅等基于半导体的现有技术的一种令人兴奋的替代方案。这种有机材料有可能为低成本设备提供应用，包括发光二极管、太阳能电池、智能卡和射频ID标签。商业产品已经开始从这一领域涌现出来，然而，为了充分发挥潜力，必须继续开发新材料和新的加工技术。目前在这类材料中使用的几乎所有分子构件都是非磁性分子，然而，使用磁性物种(自由基)提供了几个潜在的优势，包括具有新操作方法的性能更好的晶体管和自旋电子器件，其中磁矩的取向在信息处理中发挥作用。该项目将重点研究薄膜和器件中不同系列的磁性分子，以了解此类材料在电子应用中的潜力，并开发利用其独特性能的器件。

In recent years, electronic devices made from organic materials have emerged as an exciting alternative to established technologies based on semiconductors like silicon. Such organic materials have the possibility to provide low-cost devices with applications including light-emitting diodes, solar cells, smart cards and radio-frequency ID tags. Commercial products have begun to emerge from this field however to fully realise the potential, new materials and new processing techniques must continue to be developed. Almost all the molecular building blocks currently used in such materials are non-magnetic molecules, however the use of magnetic species (radicals) offers several potential advantages including better-performing transistors with new methods of operation and spintronic devices where the orientation of magnetic moments plays a role in information processing. The project will focus on the study of varying families of magnetic molecules in thin films and devices to understand the potential of such materials in electronic applications and develop devices that exploit their unique properties.