Roles of 3-Ethylrhodanine in Attaining Highly Ordered Crystal Arrays of Ambipolar Diketopyrrolopyrrole Oligomers

Until now, only limited DPP oligomers delivered ambipolar semiconductor characteristics. To develop a facile strategy of preparing ambipolar mono-DPP oligomers, two dithienyl diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPPT) based-conjugated molecules, DPPT-RD and DPPT-DCV, which contain 3-ethylrhodanine (RD) and dicyano-2-vinyl (DCV) end substituents were synthesized. The influences of the -RD end substituents on the molecular properties, solid-state morphology, and OFET performances of the DPPT oligomer were investigated. The UV–vis absorption and CV results showed that the RD end substituents provide the DPPT oligomer suitable EHOMO and ELUMO for hole and electron injection from the Au source-drain electrodes. Moreover, the RD end substituents also improve the crystalline nature of the DPPT oligomer. That is, DPPT-RD can form crystal arrays with good lattice orientation, larger crystalline size, and without polymorphism. With those properties, DPPT-RD thus display ambipolar characteristic with μh and μe reaching 2.16 × 10–2...