Department of Materials Science, University of Patras, 26504 Rio Patras, Greece, Theoretical and Physical Chemistry Institute, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48 Vass. Constantinou Avenue, 116 35 Athens, Greece, Institut de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, UPR9021 CNRS, Immunologie et Chimie Therapeutiques, 67084 Strasbourg, France, and Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Universita di Trieste, Piazzale Europa 1, 34127 Trieste, Italy

Chemistry of Carbon Nanotubes

Since the discovery of highly conducting polyacetylene by Shirakawa, MacDiarmid, and Heeger in 1977, π-conjugated systems have attracted much attention as futuristic materials for the development and production of the next generation of electronics, that is, organic electronics. Conceptually, organic electronics are quite different from conventional inorganic solid state electronics because the structural versatility of organic semiconductors allows for the incorporation of functionality by molecular design. This versatility leads to a new era in the design of electronic devices. To date, the great number of π-conjugated semiconducting materials that have either been discovered or synthesized generate an exciting library of π-conjugated systems for use in organic electronics. 11 However, some key challenges for further advancement remain: the low mobility and stability of organic semiconductors, the lack of knowledge regarding structure property relationships for understanding the fundamental chemical aspects behind the structural design, and realization of desired properties. Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) are a kind of device consisting of an organic semiconducting layer, a gate insulator layer, and three terminals (drain, source, and gate electrodes). OFETs are not only essential building blocks for the next generation of cheap and flexible organic circuits, but they also provide an important insight into the charge transport of πconjugated systems. Therefore, they act as strong tools for the exploration of the structure property relationships of πconjugated systems, such as parameters of field-effect mobility (μ, the drift velocity of carriers under unit electric field), current on/off ratio (the ratio of the maximum on-state current to the minimum off-state current), and threshold voltage (the minimum gate voltage that is required to turn on the transistor). 17 Since the discovery of OFETs in the 1980s, they have attracted much attention. Research onOFETs includes the discovery, design, and synthesis of π-conjugated systems for OFETs, device optimization, development of applications in radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, flexible displays, electronic papers, sensors, and so forth. It is beyond the scope of this review to cover all aspects of π-conjugated systems; hence, our focus will be on the performance analysis of π-conjugated systems in OFETs. This should make it possible to extract information regarding the fundamental merit of semiconducting π-conjugated materials and capture what is needed for newmaterials and what is the synthesis orientation of newπ-conjugated systems. In fact, for a new science with many practical applications, the field of organic electronics is progressing extremely rapidly. For example, using “organic field effect transistor” or “organic field effect transistors” as the query keywords to search the Web of Science citation database, it is possible to show the distribution of papers over recent years as shown in Figure 1A. It is very clear

Semiconducting π-conjugated systems in field-effect transistors: a material odyssey of organic electronics.

In this review, we discuss the physics underlying the operation of single and multiple heterojunction, vacuum-deposited organic solar cells based on small molecular weight thin films. For single heterojunction cells, we find that the need for direct contact between the deposited electrode and the active organics leads to quenching of excitons. An improved device architecture, the double heterojunction, is shown to confine excitons within the active layers, allowing substantially higher internal efficiencies to be achieved. A full optical and electrical analysis of the double heterostructure architecture leads to optimal cell design as a function of the optical properties and exciton diffusion lengths of the photoactive materials. Combining the double heterostructure with novel light trapping schemes, devices with external efficiencies approaching their internal efficiency are obtained. When applied to an organic photovoltaic cell with a power conversion efficiency of 1.0%±0.1% under 1 sun AM1.5 illuminati...

Small molecular weight organic thin-film photodetectors and solar cells

Electron and ambipolar transport in organic field-effect transistors.

For more than 70 years, researchers in several areas of science have been intrigued by the physical and chemical properties of the lowest excited states of molecular oxygen. With two singlet states lying close above its triplet ground state, the O2 molecule possesses a very unique configuration, which gives rise to a very rich and easily accessible chemistry, and also to a number of important photophysical interactions. In particular, photosensitized reactions of the first excited state, O2(∆g), play a key role in many natural photochemical and photobiological processes, such as photodegradation and aging processes including even photocarcinogenesis. Reactions of O2(∆g) are associated with significant applications in several fields, including organic synthesis, bleaching processes, and, most importantly, the photodynamic therapy of cancer, which has now obtained regulatory approval in most countries for the treatment of several types of tumors. The development of both applications and novel observation techniques has strongly accelerated during the past few years. Significant recent advances include, for example, the development of novel luminescent singlet oxygen probes,1-4 the time-resolved detection of O2(∆g) in a transmission microscope,5 the first time-resolved measurements of singlet oxygen luminescence in vivo,6 and the observation of oxygen quenching of triplet-excited single molecules.7 Experimental and theoretical studies on the mechanisms of photosensitized formation of excited O2 states and of their deactivation have been performed for almost 40 years. While most early liquid-phase studies were exclusively concerned with O2(∆g), recent technological advances also made possible time-resolved investigations of the second excited state, O2(Σg), which can be formed in competition with O2(∆g) in many cases. A significant number of * Corresponding author. Tel.: ++49 69 79829448. Fax: ++49 69 79829445. E-mail: R.Schmidt@chemie.uni-frankfurt.de. 1685 Chem. Rev. 2003, 103, 1685−1757

Physical mechanisms of generation and deactivation of singlet oxygen.

FOLLOWING the development of a method for bulk synthesis of C60 and other fullerenes1, the isolation of higher fullerenes ranging from C76 to C96 has been achieved using chromatographic techniques2–5. Whereas C60 and C70 have unique, high-symmetry structures6, theoretical calculations for fullerenes larger than C76 have suggested that each may exist in at least two isomeric forms7. For C84, 24 isomers have been postulated7, and for C96calculations have yielded 196 distinct isomers8. Diederich et al.9 have used liquid chromatography and 13C NMR to identify two isomers of C78, but previous experimental studies of other higher fullerenes2 have produced ambiguous results. Here we use 13C NMR to determine the structures of some principal isomers of C78, C82 and C84. We find a third isomer of C78, which was not reported in ref. 9. Characterization of the structures of these larger fullerenes should provide new understanding of the factors determining the stability of hollow carbon clusters.

Koichi Kikuchi

Papers

NMR characterization of isomers of C 78 , C 82 and C 84 fullerenes

Isolation and characterization of the metallofullerene LaC82

Structure and Magnetic Properties of a Chiral Two‐Dimensional Ferrimagnet with TC of 38 K

New trends in the synthesis of π-electron donors for molecular conductors and superconductors

Resistivity of single crystal C60 and effect of oxygen