pi-functional organic materials for molecular and nanoelectronics

所有迹象表明，电子有机材料将成为许多高科技应用的首选材料，包括显示器、太阳能电池、存储器、传感器等。因此，我们理解和设计电子功能的能力对于未来能源、通信甚至医疗和安全技术的发展至关重要。这些特殊的电子性质中的大多数都是在某些类型的有机分子(pi功能材料)中实现高度离域的pi电子系统。我们的研究计划旨在开发新的方法来合成和自组装新的pi功能材料，以便在分子和超分子水平(即在块状固体中)控制电子性质。在单分子、分子膜和共轭聚合物三个不同的水平上进行研究，我们希望对电子共轭和分子间相互作用如何控制电荷通过分子的传输，以及如何应用这些特性来构建功能有机/分子器件有一个普遍的理解。该研究计划的结构包括当前技术中适用的材料的合成和研究(分子半导体和薄膜晶体管的共轭聚合物)，以及那些开发在更遥远的未来具有潜在应用的新概念的材料(例如，具有多端电子输入/输出的功能性分子器件)。由于光和空气促进有机物的快速降解是限制其在光电子学中广泛应用的主要因素之一，我们将特别关注材料的稳定性；我们合成的一些半导体分子在空气中的稳定性高达近400摄氏度。我们预计，开展上述研究将极大地影响我们在有机化学、固态物理和电子学领域的知识，并产生对光电子技术具有实际意义的材料。

Electronic organic materials have all indications of becoming the materials of choice for a number of high-tech applications, including displays, solar cells, memories, sensors, etc. Therefore, our ability to understand and to design the electronic function is of paramount importance for development of future energy, communications and even medical and security technologies. Most of these special electronic properties are enabled highly delocalized pi-electron system in certain classes of organic molecules (pi-functional materials). Our research program is set to develop new approaches to synthesis and self-assembly of the new pi-functional materials, in order to control the electronic properties, both at the molecular and supramolecular level (i.e. in bulk solids). Performing the studies at three different levels - single molecules, molecular films and conjugated polymers, we look for a generalized understanding of how electronic conjugation and intermolecular interactions control the transport of electrical charge through the molecules, and how to apply these properties to build functional organic/molecular devices. The research program is structured such as to involve the synthesis and studies of materials applicable in current technologies (molecular semiconductors and conjugated polymers for thin film transistors) as well as those developing new concepts with potential applications in more distant future (eg, funcitonal molecular devices with multitermini electrical input/output). Since facile photo- and air-promoted degradation of organics is one of the major factors limiting their wide application in optoelectronics, we will pay a particular attention to stability of our materials; some of semiconducting molecules that we synthesize are stable in air up to almost 400oC. We expect that performing the suggested research will significantly impact our knowledge at the interface of organic chemistry, solid state physics and electronics, and yield the materials of practical importance for the optoelectronic technologies.