Organic Semiconducting Polymers

The field of semiconducting polymers has attracted many researchers from a diversity of disciplines. Printed circuitry, flexible electronics and displays are already migrating from laboratory successes to commercial applications, but even now fundamental knowledge is deficient concerning some of the basic phenomena that so markedly influence a device's usefulness and competitiveness. This two-volume handbook describes the various approaches to doped and undoped semiconducting polymers taken with the aim to provide vital understanding of how to control the properties of these fascinating organic materials. Prominent researchers from the fields of synthetic chemistry, physical chemistry, engineering, computational chemistry, theoretical physics, and applied physics cover all aspects from compounds to devices. Since the first edition was published in 2000, significant findings and successes have been achieved in the field, and especially handheld electronic gadgets have become billion-dollar markets that promise a fertile application ground for flexible, lighter and disposable alternatives to classic silicon circuitry. The second edition brings readers up-to-date on cutting edge research in this field.

The first advanced textbook to provide a useful introduction in a brief, coherent and comprehensive way, with a focus on the fundamentals. After having read this book, students will be prepared to understand any of the many multi-authored books available in this field that discuss a particular aspect in more detail, and should also benefit from any of the textbooks in photochemistry or spectroscopy that concentrate on a particular mechanism. Based on a successful and well-proven lecture course given by one of the authors for many years, the book is clearly structured into four sections: electronic structure of organic semiconductors, charged and excited states in organic semiconductors, electronic and optical properties of organic semiconductors, and fundamentals of organic semiconductor devices.

The unique properties of conducting and semiconducting (conjugated) polymers make them one of the most attractive areas of interdisciplinary materials science and technology. Written by a pioneer in the field, this book is the first aimed at teaching graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and specialists in industry about this exciting field.

Semiconducting polymers are of great interest for applications in electroluminescent devices, solar cells, batteries and diodes. In recent years vast advances have been made in the area of controlled synthesis of semiconducting polymers, specifically polythiophenes. The book is separated into two main sections, the first will introduce the advances made in polymer synthesis, and the second will focus on the microstructure and property analysis that has been enabled because of the recent advances in synthetic strategies. Edited by one of the leaders in the area of polythiophene synthesis, this new book will bring the field up to date with more recent models for understanding semiconducting polymers. The book will be applicable to materials and polymers chemists in industry and academia from postgraduate level upwards.

From materials to applications, this ready reference covers the entire value chain from fundamentals via processing right up to devices, presenting different approaches to large-area electronics, thus enabling readers to compare materials, properties and performance. Divided into two parts, the first focuses on the materials used for the electronic functionality, covering organic and inorganic semiconductors, including vacuum and solution-processed metal-oxide semiconductors, nanomembranes and nanocrystals, as well as conductors and insulators. The second part reviews the devices and applications of large-area electronics, including flexible and ultra-high-resolution displays, light-emitting transistors, organic and inorganic photovoltaics, large-area imagers and sensors, non-volatile memories and radio-frequency identification tags. With its academic and industrial viewpoints, this volume provides in-depth knowledge for experienced researchers while also serving as a first-stop resource for those entering the field.

Provides first-hand insights into advanced fabrication techniques for solution processable organic electronics materials and devices The field of printable organic electronics has emerged as a technology which plays a major role in materials science research and development. Printable organic electronics soon compete with, and for specific applications can even outpace, conventional semiconductor devices in terms of performance, cost, and versatility. Printing techniques allow for large-scale fabrication of organic electronic components and functional devices for use as wearable electronics, health-care sensors, Internet of Things, monitoring of environment pollution and many others, yet-to-be-conceived applications. The first part of Solution-Processable Components for Organic Electronic Devices covers the synthesis of: soluble conjugated polymers; solution-processable nanoparticles of inorganic semiconductors; high-k nanoparticles by means of controlled radical polymerization; advanced blending techniques yielding novel materials with extraordinary properties. The book also discusses photogeneration of charge carriers in nanostructured bulk heterojunctions and charge carrier transport in multicomponent materials such as composites and nanocomposites as well as photovoltaic devices modelling. The second part of the book is devoted to organic electronic devices, such as field effect transistors, light emitting diodes, photovoltaics, photodiodes and electronic memory devices which can be produced by solution-based methods, including printing and roll-to-roll manufacturing. The book provides in-depth knowledge for experienced researchers and for those entering the field. It comprises 12 chapters focused on: ? novel organic electronics components synthesis and solution-based processing techniques ? advanced analysis of mechanisms governing charge carrier generation and transport in organic semiconductors and devices ? fabrication techniques and characterization methods of organic electronic devices Providing coverage of the state of the art of organic electronics, Solution-Processable Components for Organic Electronic Devices is an excellent book for materials scientists, applied physicists, engineering scientists, and those working in the electronics industry.

Dear Readers, Since the ground-breaking, Nobel-prize crowned work of Heeger, MacDiarmid, and Shirakawa on molecularly doped polymers and polymers with an alternating bonding structure at the end of the 1970s, the academic and industrial research on hydrocarbon-based semiconducting materials and devices has made encouraging progress. The strengths of semiconducting polymers are currently mainly unfolding in cheap and easily assembled thin ?lm transistors, light emitting diodes, and organic solar cells. The use of so-called “plastic chips” ranges from lightweight, portable devices over large-area applications to gadgets demanding a degree of mechanical ?exibility, which would overstress conventionaldevices based on inorganic,perfect crystals. The ?eld of organic electronics has evolved quite dynamically during the last few years; thus consumer electronics based on molecular semiconductors has gained suf?cient market attractiveness to be launched by the major manufacturers in the recent past. Nonetheless, the numerous challenges related to organic device physics and the physics of ordered and disordered molecular solids are still the subjects of a cont- uing lively debate. The future of organic microelectronics will unavoidably lead to new devi- physical insights and hence to novel compounds and device architectures of - hanced complexity. Thus, the early evolution of predictive models and precise, computationally effective simulation tools for computer-aided analysis and design of promising device prototypes will be of crucial importance.