Manufacturing Organic-Inorganic Nanoparticle Composites with Nanoscale Precision via Directed Self-Assembly

新的光电和光子活性材料--如有机半导体和纳米颗粒--正在为市场带来新的技术和产品，如有机发光二极管（OLED）和新的磷光体（如用于量子点电视和LED白色照明）。我们对这些材料的基本性质的理解以及新材料的设计速度正在加快。特别令人感兴趣的是将有机半导体与无机纳米颗粒相结合的新一代系统。这些混合共混物或纳米复合材料作为用于显示器、通信和化学诊断的高效低成本太阳能收集装置、光电探测器和新型LED的平台技术具有很大的前景。这些材料的可扩展制造工艺将依赖于包含有机半导体、纳米颗粒和合适溶剂的油墨的溶液处理以产生功能膜或涂层。然而，这些有机纳米颗粒共混物的组分在溶液加工过程中具有聚集和相分离的强烈趋势，这是由于它们的尺寸、形状和表面能不匹配1。这严重损害了设备性能，并且迄今为止已经排除了通过大面积兼容的溶液制造技术（例如棒涂、狭缝模涂或喷墨印刷）来制造这些系统。我们提出的方法将克服这些问题，展示路线，其中两个活性成分自发自组装在沉积和随后的溶剂蒸发过程中，以产生一个精确的形态和结构的纳米复合材料在上述的长度尺度的层次。因此，我们的建议直接解决了实现功能性纳米复合材料规模化精密制造的挑战。我们寻求开发新的分子工程方法，提供一个工具包的制造方法，使精确控制的长度尺度的层次结构。这将创造新一代基于有机纳米颗粒混合物的光电和光子活性涂层和薄膜的制造路线，加速将这些混合材料的物理和化学的快速发展转化为英国的经济效益和全球社会的利益。

New optoelectronically and photonically active materials - such as organic semiconductors and nanoparticles - are bringing to market new technologies and products such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and new phosphors (as used in QD TVs and LED white lighting). Our understanding of the fundamental properties of these materials as well as the rate of design of new materials is accelerating. Of particular interest is a new generation of systems combining organic semiconductors with inorganic nanoparticles. These hybrid blends or nanocomposites hold great promise as a platform technology for high-efficiency low-cost solar energy harvesting devices, photodetectors and novel LEDs for displays, communications and chemical diagnostics.A scalable manufacturing process for these materials will rely on solution processing of an ink comprising the organic semiconductor, the nanoparticles and a suitable solvent to produce a functional film or coating. However, the components of these organic-nanoparticle blends have a strong tendency to aggregate and phase separate during solution processing, due to a mismatch of their size, shape and surface energies1. This severely compromises device performance and to date has ruled out the manufacture of these systems via large-area-compatible solution manufacturing techniques such as bar-coating, slot-die coating or inkjet printing. Our proposed methodology will overcome these problems, demonstrating routes by which the two active components spontaneously self-assemble during deposition and subsequent solvent evaporation to yield a nanocomposite with a precise morphology and structure over the hierarchy of length scales described above. Thus, our proposal directly tackles the challenge of achieving the precision manufacture at scale of functional nanocomposites. We seek to develop new molecular engineering methodologies providing a toolkit of manufacturing approaches enabling precise control over a hierarchy of length scales. This will create manufacturing routes a new generation of optoelectronically and photonically active coatings and films based on organic-nanoparticle blends, accelerating the translation of fast-moving developments in the physics and chemistry of these hybrid materials into economic benefit for the UK and benefits to society world-wide.