Making silver a stronger n-dopant than cesium via in situ coordination reaction for organic electronics

Nature Communications
Zhengyang BinLian Duan

Abstract

N-doping is an effective way to increase the electron conductivity of organic semiconductors and achieve ohmic cathode contacts in organic electronics. To avoid the use of difficult-to-handle highly reactive n-dopants, air-stable precursors are widely used nowadays, which could decompose to release reactive species in a subtractive way though always with unwanted and even harmful byproducts during processing. Here, we show that air-stable metals, such as copper, silver and gold, could release free electrons readily in the presence of chelating ligands, as the irreversible coordination reaction between metal ions and the ligands would push the equilibrium between metals and metal ions to the forward direction. By using a well-designed multi-functional electron transport material with a strong nucleophilic quality, 4,7-dimethoxy-1,10-phenanthroline (p-MeO-Phen), silver could function as an n-dopant stronger than cesium and could be used to fabricate organic light-emitting diodes with higher performance than the cesium-doped control device.

References

Dec 10, 2002·Science·F Albert CottonChad C Wilkinson
Aug 8, 2009·Physical Review Letters·Mi ZhouPeter K H Ho
Nov 8, 2011·Advanced Materials·Song GuoStephen Barlow
Nov 15, 2013·Nature Communications·Björn LüssemKarl Leo
Mar 15, 2015·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·Zhengyang BinYong Qiu
Oct 5, 2016·Chemical Reviews·Björn LüssemKarl Leo
Sep 19, 2017·The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters·Zhengyang BinLian Duan

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Citations

May 13, 2021·Nature Communications·Tsubasa SasakiHirohiko Fukagawa

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
surface plasmonic resonance
X-ray
nuclear magnetic resonance

Software Mentioned

Gaussian
Gaussview

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