Solution-processable liquid crystalline chrysene semiconductors with wide band gap: Self-organization and carrier transport properties

Abstract High-performance solution-processable organic semiconductors (OSCs) with wide bang gap (≥3.3eV) are highly required for fabricating transparent organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) with the inexpensive and low-temperature printed technique. Herein, in this study, we reported the newly synthesized chrysene-based OSCs ( di-CR-C 12 , mono-CR-C 12 ) with considerably large band gap of 3.70 eV, superior liquid crystallinity and solution-processed OTFTs mobility as high as 0.5 cm 2 /V. Such large band gap resulted in complete optical transparency of thin film in the visible-light region and good photostability. Highly ordered smectic E (SmE) phase of mono-CR-C 12 was the first reported case of the monoalkylated single core structure demonstrating advantageous capacity of CR backbone in stablizing Sm mesophase. Remarkably, high hole mobility exceeding 0.1 cm 2 /V in the bulk phase was determined by time-of-flight (TOF) technique intrinsically revealing their satisfactory carrier transport characteristics. Good solubility of mono-CR-C 12 enables solution-processed OTFTs with Au nanoparticles deposited at room-temperature and under ambient conditions, exhibiting good device performance with mobility up to 0.5 cm 2 /V. All results demonstrate that they are very promising candidates as active component for transparent electronics based on OTFTs.