Efficient Infrared Solar Cells Employing Quantum Dot Solids with Strong Inter-Dot Coupling and Efficient Passivation

Lead chalcogenide quantum dot (QD) infrared (IR) solar cells are promising devices for breaking through the theoretical efficiency limit of single-junction solar cells by harvesting the low-energy IR photons that cannot be utilized by common devices. However, the device performance of QD IR photovoltaic is limited by the restrictive relation between open-circuit voltages (V_OC) and short circuit current densities (J_SC), caused by the contradiction between surface passivation and electronic coupling of QD solids. Here, a strategy is developed to decouple this restriction via epitaxially coating a thin PbS shell over the PbSe QDs (PbSe/PbS QDs) combined with in situ halide passivation. The strong electronic coupling from the PbSe core gives rise to significant carrier delocalization, which guarantees effective carrier transport. Benefited from the protection of PbS shell and in situ halide passivation, excellent trap-state control of QDs is eventually achieved after the ligand exchange. By a fine control of the PbS shell thickness, outstanding IR J_SC of 6.38 mA cm⁻² and IR V_OC of 0.347 V are simultaneously achieved under the 1100 nm-filtered solar illumination, providing a new route to unfreeze the trade-off between V_OC and J_SC limited by the photoactive layer with a given bandgap.     

Alkoxy- and Alkyl-Side-Chain-Functionalized Terpolymer Acceptors for All-Polymer Photovoltaics Delivering High Open-Circuit Voltages and Efficiencies

A new terpolymer acceptor is presented, comprising various ratios of the same dithienothienopyrrolobenzothiadiazole (BTP) core with different side chains—alkoxy side chains (BTPO-IC) and alkyl side chains (BTP-IC)—and thiophene units, for use in all-polymer organic photovoltaics. Devices incorporating binary blends of this terpolymer and the polymer PM6 as the active layer displayed open-circuit voltages (V_OC) that increase linearly upon increasing the molar ratio of BTPO-IC. For example, the optimized device incorporating PM6:PY-0.2OBO (i.e., with 20 mol% of BTPO-IC) (1:1.2 wt.%) blend, with the smallest domain sizes but largest coherence length and combined face-on and edge-on orientation fractions among all blends, have a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.7% (V_OC = 0.97 V; J_SC = 25.2 mA cm⁻²; FF = 0.68), whereas the device containing a similar blend ratio of the PM6:PY-OD:PY-OBO ternary blend (1:0.96:0.24 wt.%) displayed a PCE of 8.6% (V_OC = 0.969 V; J_SC = 18.7 mA cm⁻²; FF = 0.48). The device with PM6:PY-0.2OBO displays better thermal stability than the devices with PM6: PY-OD or PY-OBO. Thus, employing terpolymer acceptors with differently functionalized side-chain units can be an effective approach for simultaneously optimizing the aggregation domain and enhancing the PCEs and thermal stabilities of all-polymer devices.     

Hierarchically Interconnected Piezoceramic Textile with a Balanced Performance in Piezoelectricity,Flexibility, Toughness,and Air Permeability

Softening of piezoelectric materials facilitates the development of flexible wearables and energy harvesting devices. However, as one of the most competitive candidates, piezoelectric ceramic-polymer composites inevitably exhibit reduced power-generation capability and weak mechanical strength due to the mismatch of strength and permittivity between the two phases inside. Herein a flexible, air-permeable, and high-performance piezoceramic textile composite with a mechanically reinforced hierarchical porous structure is introduced. Based on a template-assisted sol-gel method, a three-order hierarchical ceramic textile is constructed by intertwining submillimeter-scale multi-ply ceramic fibers that are further formed by twisting micrometer-scale one-ply ceramic fibrils. Theoretical analysis indicates that large mechanical stress can be easily induced in the multi-order hierarchical structure, which greatly benefits the electrical output. Fabricated samples generate an open-circuit voltage of 128 V, a short-circuit current of 120 µA, and an instantaneous power density of 0.75 mW cm⁻², much higher than the previously reported works. The developed multi-order and 3D-interconnected piezoceramic textile shows satisfactory piezoelectricity (d₃₃ of 190 pm V⁻¹), air permeability (45.1 mm s⁻¹), flexibility (Young's modulus of 0.35 GPa), and toughness (0.125 MJ m⁻³), collectively. The design strategy of obtaining balanced properties promotes the practicality of smart/functional materials in wearables and flexible electronics.     

Leaf-Like TENGs for Harvesting Gentle Wind Energy at An Air Velocity as Low as 0.2 m s−1

Existing technologies for harvesting electrical energy from gentle wind face an enormous challenge due to the limitations of cut-in and rated wind speed. Here, a leaf-like triboelectric nanogenerator (LL-TENG) is proposed that uses contact electrification caused by the damped forced vibration of topology-optimized structure consisting of flexible leaf, vein bearing plate, and counterweight piece. The effectiveness of the topology-optimized leaf-like structure is studied, which solves the problem of reduced output due to electrostatic adsorption between the leaf surfaces while reducing the cut-in (0.2 m s⁻¹) and rated wind speed (2.5 m s⁻¹). The LL-TENG unit having small dimensions of 40 cm⁻² (mass of 9.7 g) at a gentle wind of 2.5 m s⁻¹ exhibits outstanding electrical performances, which produces an open-circuit voltage of 338 V, a short-circuit current of 7.9 µA and the transferred charge density of 62.5 µC m⁻² with a low resonant frequency of 4 Hz, giving an instantaneous peak power of 2 mW. A distributed power source consists of the five LL-TENGs in parallel is developed by designed self-adaptive structure, for which the peak power output reaches 3.98 mW, and its practicability and durability are successfully demonstrated. This study is a promising distributed power source technology to drive electronics in gentle wind outdoor environments.     

Over 24% Efficient Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)-Coordinated Perovskite Solar Cells with a Photovoltage up to 1.22 V

Recently, organic–inorganic metal halide perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have achieved rapid improvement, however, the efficiencies are still behind the Shockley–Queisser theory mainly due to their high energy loss (E_LOSS) in open-circuit voltage (V_OC). Due to the polycrystalline nature of the solution-prepared perovskite films, defects at the grain boundaries as the non-radiative recombination centers greatly affect the V_OC and limit the device efficiency. Herein, poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) is introduced as polymer-templates in the perovskite film, where the fluorine atoms in the PVDF network can form strong hydrogen-bonds with organic cations and coordinate bonds with Pb²⁺. The strong interaction between PVDF and perovksite enables slow crystal growth and efficient defect passivation, which effectively reduce non-radiation recombination and minimize E_LOSS of V_OC. PVDF-based PSCs achieve a champion efficiency of 24.21% with a excellent voltage of 1.22 V, which is one of the highest V_OC values reported for FAMAPb(I/Br)₃-based PSCs. Furthermore, the strong hydrophobic fluorine atoms in PVDF endow the device with excellent humidity stability, the unencapsulated solar cell maintain the initial efficiency of >90% for 2500 h under air ambient of ≈50% humid and a consistently high V_OC of 1.20 V.     

Sintered Polycrystalline BiVO4 Pellet for Stable X-Ray Detector with Low Detection Limit

Semiconductors based on Bi element show large attenuation coefficients to X-ray photons and have been recognized as candidates for X-ray detectors. However, the application of stable Bi-based oxide materials to X-ray detectors has been rarely investigated. In this research, the X-ray response of a BiVO₄ pellet has been studied. It has been found that the BiVO₄ pellet has a large resistivity of 1.3 × 10¹² Ω cm, negligible current drift of 6.18 × 10⁻⁸ nA cm⁻¹ s⁻¹ V⁻¹ under electrical bias and mobility lifetime product, µτ, of 1.75 × 10⁻⁴ cm² V⁻¹, which renders the pellet with an X-ray sensitivity of 241.3 µC Gy_air⁻¹ cm⁻² and a detection limit of 62 nGy_air s⁻¹ under 40 KVp X-ray illumination and 40 V bias voltage. The BiVO₄ pellet also shows operational stability under steady X-ray illumination with total dose of 2.01 Gy_air, equal to the dose of 20 000 medical chest X-ray inspections. This research reveals the potential application of BiVO₄ in X-ray detection devices and inspires further research in this area.     

Analysis of the Annealing Budget of Metal Oxide Thin-Film Transistors Prepared by an Aqueous Blade-Coating Process

Metal oxide (MO) semiconductors are widely used in electronic devices due to their high optical transmittance and promising electrical performance. This work describes the advancement toward an eco-friendly, streamlined method for preparing thin-film transistors (TFTs) via a pure water-solution blade-coating process with focus on a low thermal budget. Low temperature and rapid annealing of triple-coated indium oxide thin-film transistors (3C-TFTs) and indium oxide/zinc oxide/indium oxide thin-film transistors (IZI-TFTs) on a 300 nm SiO₂ gate dielectric at 300 °C for only 60 s yields devices with an average field effect mobility of 10.7 and 13.8 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, respectively. The devices show an excellent on/off ratio (>10⁶), and a threshold voltage close to 0 V when measured in air. Flexible MO-TFTs on polyimide substrates with AlO_x dielectrics fabricated by rapid annealing treatment can achieve a remarkable mobility of over 10 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at low operating voltage. When using a longer post-coating annealing period of 20 min, high-performance 3C-TFTs (over 18 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) and IZI-TFTs (over 38 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) using MO semiconductor layers annealed at 300 °C are achieved.     

D–A copolymer with high ambipolar mobilities based on dithienothiophene and diketopyrrolopyrrole for polymer solar cells and organic field-effect transistors

Donor–acceptor (D–A) type conjugated polymers have been developed to absorb longer wavelength light in polymer solar cells (PSCs) and to achieve a high charge carrier mobility in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). PDTDP, containing dithienothiophene (DTT) as the electron donor and diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) as the electron acceptor, was synthesized by stille polycondensation in order to achieve the advantages of D–A type conjugated polymers. The polymer showed optical band gaps of 1.44 and 1.42 eV in solution and in film, respectively, and a HOMO level of 5.09 eV. PDTDP and PC₇₁BM blends with 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) exhibited improved performance in PSCs with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.45% under AM 1.5G irradiation. By investigating transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the light intensity dependence of J_SC and V_OC, we conclude that DIO acts as a processing additive that helps to form a nanoscale phase separation between donor and acceptor, resulting in an enhancement of μ_h and μ_e, which affects the J_SC, EQE, and PCE of PSCs. The charge carrier mobilities of PDTDP in OFETs were also investigated at various annealing temperatures and the polymer exhibited the highest hole and electron mobilities of 2.53 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at 250 °C and 0.36 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at 310 °C, respectively. XRD and AFM results demonstrated that the thermal annealing temperature had a critical effect on the changes in the crystallinity and morphology of the polymer. The low-voltage device was fabricated using high-k dielectric, P(VDF-TrFE) and P(VDF-TrFE-CTFE), and the carrier mobility of PDTDP was reached 0.1 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at V_d = −5 V. PDTDP complementary inverters were fabricated, and the high ambipolar characteristics of the polymer resulted in an output voltage gain of more than 25.     

Multi-level non-volatile organic transistor-based memory using lithium-ion-encapsulated fullerene as a charge trapping layer

We report on multi-level non-volatile organic transistor-based memory using pentacene semiconductor and a lithium-ion-encapsulated fullerene (Li⁺@C₆₀) as a charge trapping layer. Memory organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) with a Si⁺⁺/SiO₂/Li⁺@C₆₀/Cytop/Pentacene/Cu structure exhibited a performance of p-type transistor with a threshold voltage (V_th) of −5.98 V and a mobility (μ) of 0.84 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. The multi-level memory OFETs exhibited memory windows (ΔV_th) of approximate 10 V, 16 V, and 32 V, with a programming gate voltage of 150 V for 0.5 s, 5 s, and 50 s, and an erasing gate voltage of −150 V for 0.17 s, 1.7 s, and 17 s, respectively. Four logic states were clearly distinguishable in our multi-level memory, and its data could be programmed or erased many times. The multi-level memory effect in our OFETs is ascribed to the electron-trapping ability of the Li⁺@C₆₀ layer.     

High-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Chalcogen Containing Branched Chain Engineering: Balancing Short-Circuit Current and Open-Circuit Voltage,Enhancing Fill Factor

The elaborate balance between the open-circuit voltage (V_OC) and the short-circuit current density (J_SC) is critical to ensure efficient organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, the chalcogen containing branched chain engineering is employed to address this dilemma. Three novel nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs), named BTP-2O , BTP-O-S , and BTP-2S , featuring different peripheral chalcogen containing branched chains are synthesized. Compared with symmetric BTP-2O and BTP-2S grafting two alkoxy or alkylthio branched chains, the asymmetric BTP-O-S grafting one alkoxy and one alkylthio branched chains shows mediate absorption range, applicable miscibility, and favorable crystallinity. Benefiting from the enhanced π–π stacking and charge transport, an optimal power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 17.3% is obtained for the PM6: BTP-O-S -based devices, with a good balance between V_OC (0.912 V) and J_SC (24.5 mA cm⁻²), and a high fill factor (FF) of 0.775, which is much higher than those of BTP-2O (16.1%) and BTP-2S -based (16.4%) devices. Such a result represents one of the highest efficiencies among the binary OSCs with V_OC surpassing 0.9 V. Moreover, the BTP-O-S -based devices fabricated by using green solvent yield a satisfactory PCE of 17.1%. This work highlights the synergistic effect of alkoxy and alkylthio branched chains for high-performance OSCs by alleviating voltage loss and enhancing FF.     

A highly emissive distyrylthieno[3,2-b]thiophene based red luminescent organic single crystal: Aggregation induced emission,optical waveguide edge emission,and balanced ambipolar carrier transport

A highly emissive red luminescent single crystal which shows aggregation induced emission (AIE) property and optical waveguide edge emission based on small organic functional molecule, cyano-substituted 2,5-di((E)-styryl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (CNP2V2TT) has been prepared by the physical vapor transport (PVT) method. The fluorescence quantum efficiency of crystal is up to 37% and an emission peak maximum (λ_max) locates at 645 nm. Cystallographic data indicate that uniaxially oriented molecular packing with slipped face-to-face π-π stacking forms by the hydrogen bonding network among CNP2V2TT molecules. The single crystal FET devices were fabricated using Au and Ca as hole and electron injection electrodes, respectively. The molecular design, introducing cyano groups into molecular skeleton, effectively lower the LUMO level and achieve well-balanced ambipolar electron (0.13 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) and hole (0.085 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) mobilities.     

Multilevel Structure Engineered Lead-Free Piezoceramics Enabling Breakthrough in Energy Harvesting Performance for Bioelectronics

The prevalence of wearable/implantable medical electronics together with the rapid development of the Internet of Medicine Things call for the advancement of biocompatible, reliable, and high-efficiency energy harvesters. However, most current harvesters are based on toxic lead-based piezoelectric materials, raising biological safety concerns. What hinders the application of lead-free piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) is the low power output, where the key challenge lies in obtaining a high piezoelectric voltage constant (g₃₃) and harvesting figure of merit (d₃₃ × g₃₃). Here, micron pores are introduced into phased boundary engineered high-performance (K, Na)NbO₃-based ceramic matrix, resulting in the state-of-the-art g₃₃ and the highest d₃₃ × g₃₃ values of 57.3 × 10⁻³ Vm N⁻¹ and 20887 × 10⁻¹⁵ m² N⁻¹ in lead-free piezoceramics, respectively. Concomitantly, ultrahigh energy harvesting performances are obtained in porous ceramic PEHs, with output voltage and power density of 200 V and 11.6 mW cm⁻² under instantaneous force impact and an average charging rate of 14.1 µW under high-frequency (1 MHz) ultrasound excitation, far outperforming previously reported PEHs. Porous ceramic PEHs are further developed into wearable and bio-implantable devices for human motion sensing and percutaneous ultrasound power transmission, opening avenues for the design of next-generation eco-friendly WIMEs.     

The role of water in the device performance of n-type PTCDI-C8 organic field-effect transistors with solution-based gelatin dielectric

Gelatin is a natural protein, which works well as the gate dielectric for N,N-dioctyl-3,4,9,10-perylene tetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI-C₈) organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). An aqueous solution process was applied to form the gelatin gate dielectric on poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) by spin-coating and subsequent casting. The field-effect mobility in the saturation regime (μ_FE,sat) and the threshold voltage (V_T) values of a typical 40 nm PTCDI-C₈ OFET are (0.22 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, 55 V) in vacuum and (0.74 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹, 2.6 V) in air ambient. The maximum voltage shift in hysteresis is also reduced from 10 V to 2 V when the operation environment for PTCDI-C₈ OFETs is changed from vacuum to air ambient. Nevertheless, a slight reduction of electron mobility was found when the device was stressed in the air ambient. The change in the device performance has been attributed to the charged ions generation owing to water absorption in gelatin in air ambient.     

Rationally Designed Anti-Glare Panel Arrays as Highway Wind Energy Harvester

The anti-glare panels along highways can block the dazzling lights of opposing vehicles at night, playing an important role in the highway safety. Inspired by the highway anti-glare panels, wind energy harvesting triboelectric nanogenerator (AG-TENG) arrays to properly capture energy from highway moving vehicles is developed. A single AG-TENG installation module can achieve a high power density of 0.2 Wm⁻² at a wind speed of 3 m s⁻¹. This wind speed is too low to drive conventional wind energy harvesting equipment. The performance of the AG-TENG shows no degradation after 80 h of continuous operation (1 440 000 times). Thus, with the rational consideration and features, the system can generate enough power to drive internet of things (IoT) devices and environmental sensors, as well as offer wireless alarming and radio frequency identification vehicle monitoring. This study provides a promising strategy to properly harvest wind energy on highways using existing infrastructures under the condition of even no natural wind, showing broad application prospects in distributed environmental monitoring, intelligent highways, and the IoT.     

Achieving Ultrahigh Electron Mobility in PdSe2 Field-Effect Transistors via Semimetal Antimony as Contacts

Even though atomically thin 2D semiconductors have shown great potential for next-generation electronics, the low carrier mobility caused by poor metal–semiconductor contacts and the inherently high density of impurity scatterings remains a critical issue. Herein, high-mobility field-effect transistors (FETs) by introducing few-layer PdSe₂ flakes as channels is achieved, via directly depositing semimetal antimony (Sb) as drain–source electrodes. The formation of clean and defect-free van der Waals (vdW) stackings at the Sb–PdSe₂ heterointerfaces boosts the room temperature transport characteristics, including low contact resistance down to 0.55 kΩ µm, high on-current density reaching 96 µA µm⁻¹, and high electron mobility of 383 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. Furthermore, metal–insulator transition (MIT) is observed in the PdSe₂ FETs with and without hexagonal boron nitride (h–BN) as buffer layers. However, the layered h–BN/PdSe₂ vdW stacking eliminates the interference of interfacial disorders, and thus the corresponding device exhibits a lower MIT crossing point, larger mobility exponent of γ ∼ 1.73, significantly decreased hopping parameter of T₀, and ultrahigh electron mobility of 2,184 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ at 10 K. These findings are expected to be significant for developing high mobility 2D-based quantum devices.     

Nano-Engineered Carbon Fibre-Based Piezoelectric Smart Composites for Energy Harvesting and Self-Powered Sensing

The integration of piezoelectric materials onto carbon fiber (CF) can add energy harvesting and self-power sensing capabilities enabling great potential for “Internet of Things” (IoT) applications in motion tracking, environmental sensing, and personal portable electronics. Herein, a CF-based smart composite is developed by integrating piezoelectric poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)/CuSCN-coated ZnO nanorods onto the CF surfaces with no detrimental effect on the mechanical properties of the composite, forming composites using two different polymer matrices: highly flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and more rigid epoxy. The PDMS-coated piezoelectric smart composite can serve as an energy harvester and a self-powered sensor for detecting variations in impact acceleration with increasing output voltage from 1.4 to 7.6 V under impact acceleration from 0.1 to 0.4 m s⁻². Using epoxy as the matrix for a CF-reinforced plastic (CFRP) device with sensing and detection functions produces a voltage varying from 0.27 to 3.53 V when impacted at acceleration from 0.1 to 0.4 m s⁻², with a lower output compared to the PDMS-coated device attributed to the greater stiffness of the matrix. Finally, spatially sensitive detection is demonstrated by positioning two piezoelectric structures at different locations, which can identify the location as well as the level of the impacting force from the fabricated device.     

Organic Molecular Intercalated V3O7·H2O with High Operating Voltage for Long Cycle Life Aqueous Zn-Ion Batteries

V₃O₇·H₂O (VO) is an attractive cathode material for high-capacity aqueous Zn-ion batteries (AZIBs), but it is limited by slow ion mobility and low working platform voltage. Here, a 1,3-propane diamine (DP)-intercalated VO with nanoribbon-assembled thorn flower-like structure is fabricated by a facile hydrothermal method, noted as VO-DP. The study shows that the zinc ion diffusion coefficient in VO-DP (3.1 × 10⁻⁸ cm⁻² s⁻¹) is five orders of magnitude higher than that of a pure VO counterpart. Auxiliary density functional theory simulation shows that the embedded energy of zinc ions in VO-DP significantly decreases from 0.24 to −2.5 eV, thus leading to excellent diffusion kinetics and superior rate performance. Benefiting from these unique properties, AZIBs composed of VO-DP cathodes exhibit high operating voltage (0.89 V), remarkable capacities of 473 mA h g⁻¹ at 0.05 A g⁻¹, excellent rate capability (144 mA h g⁻¹ at 10 A g⁻¹) and long-term cycling performance (73% capacity retention over 15 000 cycles at 10 A g⁻¹).     

Controllable thin-film morphology and structure for 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophene (C8BTBT) based organic field-effect transistors

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on organic semiconductor material 2,7-dioctyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b] benzothiophene (C8BTBT) as the active layer were fabricated by using organic molecular beam deposition (OMBD) and solution-processed methods, in which the C8BTBT thin-film morphology could be well controlled. In OMBD method, C8BTBT thin-film morphology could be controlled by the thickness of organic semiconductor layer and the deposition rate, of which the high-quality C8BTBT thin film was obtained at a thickness of about 20 nm and at a deposition rate of 1.2 nm/min, resulting in an obvious mobility improvement from 2.8 × 10⁻³ cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ to 1.20 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. While in the solution-processing, C8BTBT thin-film morphology and thickness are related to the spin-coating speed and the substrate position in spin coater, i.e., in-centre and off-centre position. The off-centre spin-coating with an optimized speed produced large-size domain C8BTBT thin film and accordingly resulted in a mobility of 1.47 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. Furthermore, an additive polystyrene (PS) was added into C8BTBT solution could further improve the thin-film morphology with more metal-stable phase as well as improve the interface contact with the substrate SiO₂, resulting in the highest mobility up to 3.56 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. The research suggested that C8BTBT-based OFETs with the mobility over 1.20 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ could be fabricated by using both OMBD and solution-processed methods through the thin-film morphology and structure optimization, which shows the potential applications in high-performance flexible and printed electronics.     

Polydiketopyrrolopyrroles Carrying Ethylene Glycol Substituents as Efficient Mixed Ion-Electron Conductors for Biocompatible Organic Electrochemical Transistors

A comprehensive investigation of four polydiketopyrrolopyrroles (PDPPs) with increasing ethylene glycol (EG) content and varying nature of comonomer is presented, and guidelines for the design of efficient mixed ion-electron conductors (MIECs) are deduced. The studies in NaCl electrolyte-gated organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) reveal that a high amount of EG on the DPP moiety is essential for MIEC. The PDPP containing 52 wt% EG exhibits a high volumetric capacitance of 338 F cm⁻³ (at 0.8 V), a high hole mobility in aqueous medium (0.13 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹), and a μC* product of 45 F cm⁻¹ V⁻¹ s⁻¹. OECTs using this polymer retain 97% of the initial drain-current after 1200 cycles (90 min of continuous operation). In a cell growth medium, the OECT-performance is fully maintained as in the NaCl electrolyte. In vitro cytotoxicity and cell viability assays reveal the excellent cell compatibility of these novel systems, showing no toxicity after 24 h of culture. Due to the excellent OECT performance with a considerable cycling stability for 1200 cycles and an outstanding cell compatibility, these PDPPs render themselves viable for in vitro and in vivo bioelectronics.     

Effect of substituents of twisted benzodiperylenediimides on non-fullerene solar cells

Twisted benzodiperylenediimides (TBDPDI) with large rigid conjugated core and strong absorption is regarded as an excellent acceptor in non-fullerene solar cells. Since side chains of semiconductors play a crucial role in the solar cells, TBDPDI acceptors with different side chains (1-ethylpropyl, C5; 2-ethylhexyl, C8; 1-pentylhexyl, C11; 2-octyldodecyl, C20; 1-undecyldodecyl, C23) were synthesized. In solution, TBDPDI compounds (C5, C11, and C23) with alkyl chains branched at 1-position show significantly different absorption profiles and fluorescence intensity with those (C8 and C20) branched at 2-position, due to stronger aggregation of the latter. Nevertheless, alkyl chains have little effect on the molecular orbital energy levels and optical band gaps, as verified by cyclic voltammetry and solid state absorption. Due to their complementary absorption and matchable energy levels with donor of PCE10, these acceptors and PCE10 were used together to fabricate bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. Because of inferior phase separation with large domain size around 100 nm and bulky insulated side chains, acceptors (C20 and C23) with long alkyl chains have the low electron mobility (μ_e) around 10⁻⁸ cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and the low power conversion efficiency (PCE) of solar cells. TBDPDI (C11) with 1-pentylhexyl gives the highest PCE of 5.0% under the optimized condition, which is attributed to proper phase separation with domain size around 20 nm and highest μ_e of 10⁻⁶ cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹.