TY - JOUR
T1 - Transition metal-catalysed molecular n-doping of organic semiconductors
AU - Guo, Han
AU - Yang, Chi Yuan
AU - Zhang, Xianhe
AU - Motta, Alessandro
AU - Feng, Kui
AU - Xia, Yu
AU - Shi, Yongqiang
AU - Wu, Ziang
AU - Yang, Kun
AU - Chen, Jianhua
AU - Liao, Qiaogan
AU - Tang, Yumin
AU - Sun, Huiliang
AU - Woo, Han Young
AU - Fabiano, Simone
AU - Facchetti, Antonio
AU - Guo, Xugang
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements H.G. and X.G. gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51903117 and 21774055) and the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission (JCYJ20180504165709042). A.F. acknowledges AFOSR grant FA9550-18-1-0320. S.F. and C.-Y.Y. acknowledge financial support from the Swedish Research Council (2020-03243), Olle Engkvists Stiftelse (204-0256), VINNOVA (2020-05223),Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU 2009-00971), and the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie project HORATES (GA-955837). A.M. acknowledges CINECA award no. HP10CC5WSY 2020 under the ISCRA initiative for computational resources. H.Y.W. acknowledges financial support from the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea (NRF-2019R1A2C2085290). We also acknowledge technical support from SUSTech Core Research Facilities. We thank H. Li, L. Lin, Z.-Y. Ren and Y.-H. Yang for performing ESI-MS and ESR measurements. We thank L. Safaric, Q. Li and Y. Liu (Linköping University) for assistance with GC, absorption and NMR measurements.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2021/11/4
Y1 - 2021/11/4
N2 - Chemical doping is a key process for investigating charge transport in organic semiconductors and improving certain (opto)electronic devices1–9. N(electron)-doping is fundamentally more challenging than p(hole)-doping and typically achieves a very low doping efficiency (η) of less than 10%1,10. An efficient molecular n-dopant should simultaneously exhibit a high reducing power and air stability for broad applicability1,5,6,9,11, which is very challenging. Here we show a general concept of catalysed n-doping of organic semiconductors using air-stable precursor-type molecular dopants. Incorporation of a transition metal (for example, Pt, Au, Pd) as vapour-deposited nanoparticles or solution-processable organometallic complexes (for example, Pd2(dba)3) catalyses the reaction, as assessed by experimental and theoretical evidence, enabling greatly increased η in a much shorter doping time and high electrical conductivities (above 100 S cm−1; ref. 12). This methodology has technological implications for realizing improved semiconductor devices and offers a broad exploration space of ternary systems comprising catalysts, molecular dopants and semiconductors, thus opening new opportunities in n-doping research and applications12, 13.
AB - Chemical doping is a key process for investigating charge transport in organic semiconductors and improving certain (opto)electronic devices1–9. N(electron)-doping is fundamentally more challenging than p(hole)-doping and typically achieves a very low doping efficiency (η) of less than 10%1,10. An efficient molecular n-dopant should simultaneously exhibit a high reducing power and air stability for broad applicability1,5,6,9,11, which is very challenging. Here we show a general concept of catalysed n-doping of organic semiconductors using air-stable precursor-type molecular dopants. Incorporation of a transition metal (for example, Pt, Au, Pd) as vapour-deposited nanoparticles or solution-processable organometallic complexes (for example, Pd2(dba)3) catalyses the reaction, as assessed by experimental and theoretical evidence, enabling greatly increased η in a much shorter doping time and high electrical conductivities (above 100 S cm−1; ref. 12). This methodology has technological implications for realizing improved semiconductor devices and offers a broad exploration space of ternary systems comprising catalysts, molecular dopants and semiconductors, thus opening new opportunities in n-doping research and applications12, 13.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118530336&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-021-03942-0
DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-03942-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 34732866
AN - SCOPUS:85118530336
SN - 1465-7392
VL - 599
SP - 67
EP - 73
JO - Nature Cell Biology
JF - Nature Cell Biology
IS - 7883
ER -