Research Project: U.S. Army Center for Military History Internship
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Expanding the Design Scope of Organic Optoelectronic Materials through Quinoidal Ladder-Type Constitution.
This research plan seeks to expand the fundamental principles of energy level engineering of π-conjugated macromolecules, testing the hypothesis that incorporation of quinoidal constitution and ladder-type backbone into organic materials can tailor their energy level and bandgap to reach superior optoelectronic performances. Accomplishment of this project will significantly broaden our scope of design on functional organic-systems, affording opportunities for the development of novel polymer materials possessing unprecedented optoelectronic performances, particularly in photovoltaic devices.
Energy level engineering of the frontier orbitals represents the core effort in the research of organic electronic materials. The prevailing strategies to tailor energy levels and bandgaps, however, often manipulate only one or two individual tunable parameters, among a number of assorted factors. The lack of a general and integrated approach to control the electronic structures has been one of the main challenges for the related research fields, leading to inherent issues such as narrow scope of building blocks, unpredictable properties, limited window of material functions, and demanding chemical synthesis, etc. Consequently, the practical development of functional organic electronic materials are severely restricted and hampered. Herein we plan to develop an integrated approach that incorporates additional dimensions of structural design to address this grand challenge, achieving the ability of synergistic manipulation of assorted parameters impacting the electronic performances of organic electronic materials.
The research plan is composed of three interwoven and iterative phases: In Phase I, model organic materials featuring quinoidal ladder type constitution will be designed and synthesized on the basis of our preliminary results. These materials include quinoidal full ladder polymers, step-ladder polymers, and n-type small molecules. The purpose of this phase is to demonstrate the feasibility of materials production and to provide a library of materials with rational design for the subsequent investigations. In Phase II, solution phase properties of these compounds will be characterized in order to establish a comprehensive relationship between the unique structural features of these compounds with their intrinsic electronic structures. Fundamental knowledge that guides the future expansion of molecular design scope will be obtained in this phase. In Phase III, process engineering and solid-state investigation on selected lead candidate compounds will be performed, focusing on the characters closely-related to photovoltaic device performances. These data will provide feedback for the structural design and property correlation in Phase I and II. Overall, through these iterative phases of research, we will interrogate the aforementioned fundamental hypothesis, establish the integrated design principles, and develop prototype high performance materials for optoelectronic applications.
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