Transparent organic electronics based on graphene

透明有机电子和光电子器件是当今新兴的技术，用于未来的应用，例如在智能窗户和光伏电池中。有机材料的特性包括大的和超快的非线性光学响应和大的颜色可调性。然而，有机材料的导电性通常很差，这限制了它们的应用。在这里，我们建议为这种应用寻求一种新型的有机材料，一种具有高导电性的材料，因此有可能给该领域带来革命性的变化：材料是石墨烯。这是一张只有一个原子厚的碳片，具有惊人的强度、弹性、透明度和导电性。拟议的项目专门针对调整石墨烯的电子性质，以便使这种材料的潜力能够在透明电子和光电子器件中得到开发。该项目的成果是基于石墨烯的透明器件的开发，这将是透明电子商业和经济发展的基础。到目前为止，不同分子物种的石墨烯的化学官能化表明，每个分子物种都可以用来在石墨烯中积累电子或空穴(即石墨烯的n型或p型掺杂)。这表明，相邻石墨烯区域的不同掺杂可能被用来设计电子/空穴界面，也称为p-n结，这是当今大部分电子器件的核心。其他化学物种，如附着在石墨烯上的氢和氟原子，可以通过在原本为零间隙的半金属材料中打开带隙来改变其能带结构，从而为将石墨烯用作真正的有机半导体提供了机会。石墨烯材料的化学功能化所提供的潜力还处于起步阶段，它在未来的集成光电子学中有着巨大的前景。电子学中将器件集成在同一芯片上的巨大优势自然表明，电子和光电设备也是如此。然而，由于固有的不兼容性，光电子器件的集成已被证明是一个困难的挑战。例如，基于p-n结构的发光二极管具有与任何晶体管的结构完全不同的结构。石墨烯的开发将使这种不兼容性得以克服。石墨烯功能化的智能方案有望实现与发光和检测设备集成的透明标准电阻、电容器和晶体管结构的图案化，这构成了迈向智能窗户等应用的基本步骤。这项开创性的研究是这项提议的核心。

Transparent organic electronic and optoelectronic devices are nowadays emerging technologies for future applications, for example in smart windows and in photovoltaic cells. The attributes of organic materials include large and ultrafast nonlinear optical responses and large colour tuneability. However, the electrical conductivity of organic materials is usually poor and this limits their utility. Here we propose to pursue a new type of organic material for such applications, a material that has a high electrical conductivity and thus has the potential to revolutionise the field: the material is graphene. This is a sheet of carbon just one atom thick, with spectacular strength, flexibility, transparency, and electrical conductivity. The proposed project is directed specifically at tuning the electronic properties of graphene in order to allow the potential of this material to be exploited in transparent electronic and optoelectronic devices. The outputs of the project, the development of graphene-based transparent devices, will be fundamental to the commercial and the economic development of transparent electronics.So far, chemical functionalization of graphene with different molecular species revealed that each molecular specie can be used to accumulate electrons or holes in graphene ( that is n- or p-type doping of graphene). This suggests the possibility that different doping of adjacent graphene areas can be used to engineer electron/hole interfaces also known as p-n junctions, which are the core of large part of nowadays electronic devices. Other chemical species such as hydrogen and fluorine atoms attached to graphene can modify its band structure by opening a band gap in the otherwise zero-gap semimetallic material, providing the opportunity to use graphene as a truly organic semiconductor. The potential afforded by the chemical functionalization of graphene materials is still in its infancy, and it holds great promise for future integrated optoelectronics. The tremendous advantages of integrating devices on the same chip in electronics naturally suggest that the same be done with electronic and optoelectronic devices. However, integration of optoelectronic devices has proven to be a difficult challenge because of inherent incompatibilities. For example, a light-emitting diode based on a p-n structure has a structure quite different from the structure of any transistor. The exploitation of graphene will allow this incompatibility to be transcended. Intelligent schemes of functionalization of graphene hold the promise to accomplish the patterning of transparent standard resistors, capacitors and transistor structures integrated with light-emitting and detecting devices which constitutes a fundamental step towards applications such as smart windows. This pioneering research is at the core of this proposal.