Bespoke Crystallization to Enable High Performance Organic Electronics and Circuits

The Anthony group has decades of experience in the synthesis of highly crystalline organic semiconductors, and the development of functionalization strategies to enhance their performance in electronic devices. For the proposed effort, Anthony and one full-time graduate student will undertake syntheses at the direction of the Amassian group to enhance crystal packing, crystallization rate, grain size, and potential processing parameters for the development of new protocols to achieve unprecedented performance from organic semiconductors. The anticipated timeline / milestones for our effort on this project are: o First period - synthesis or re-synthesis of current best-performing organic semiconductors for evaluation by the Amassian group, in order to provide a punch list of parameters that must be synthetically tuned o Second period - with feedback from KAUST, synthesize new semiconductors to assess the impact of recommended changes on material performance. Continue feedback and re-synthesis to iteratively approach new materials with outstanding electronic performance o Third period - as performance metrics are attained, the Anthony group will begin to further tune materials to optimize compatibility with novel processing techniques and protocols developed at KAUST. We will also survey best-performing materials to determine possible approaches to reduce materials cost or utilize sustainable feedstocks for bulk material production.