Fluorocarbon-Modified Organic Semiconductors: Molecular Architecture, Electronic, and Crystal Structure Tuning of Arene- versus Fluoroarene-Thiophene Oligomer Thin-Film Properties

We present here the systematic synthesis and comparative physicochemical characterization
of a series of regiochemically varied and core size extension-modulated arene(perfluoroarene)−thiophene
oligomers. The molecules investigated are:  5,5‘ ‘-diphenyl-2,2‘:5‘,2‘ ‘:5‘ ‘,2‘ ‘‘-quaterthiophene (1), 5,5‘-bis{1-[4-(thien-2-yl)phenyl]}-2,2‘-dithiophene (2), 4,4‘-bis[5-(2,2‘-dithiophenyl)]-biphenyl (3), 5,5‘ ‘-diperfluorophenyl-2,2‘:5‘,2‘ ‘:5‘ ‘,2‘ ‘‘-quaterthiophene (4), 5,5‘-bis{1-[4-(thien-2-yl)perfluorophenyl]}-2,2‘-dithiophene
(5), 4,4‘-bis[5-(2,2‘-dithiophenyl)]-perfluorobiphenyl (6), 5,5‘ ‘-diperfluorophenyl-2,2‘:5‘,2‘ ‘-tertthiophene (7),
5,5‘-diperfluorophenyl-2,2‘-dihiophene (8), and 5,5-diperfluorophenylthiophene (9). Trends in optical
absorption and emission parameters, molecular structures as defined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction,
as well as electrochemical redox processes are described. The morphologies and microstructures of the
vapor-deposited films grown over a range of growth temperatures have also been characterized. Field-effect transistor (FET) measurements demonstrate that all of these materials are FET-active and, depending
on the molecular architecture, exhibit comparably good p- or n-type mobility when optimum film
microstructural order is achieved. A very large n-channel mobility of ∼0.5 cm2/Vs with Ion/Ioff ratios > 108
is achieved for films of 4.