Ab Initio Treatment of Disorder Effects in Amorphous Organic Materials: Toward Parameter Free Materials Simulation

Disordered organic materials have a wide range of interesting applications, such as organic light emitting diodes, organic photovoltaics, and thin film electronics. To model electronic transport through such materials it is essential to describe the energy distribution of the available electronic states of the carriers in the material. Here, we present a self-consistent, linear-scaling first-principles approach to model environmental effects on the electronic properties of disordered molecular systems. We apply our parameter free approach to calculate the energy disorder distribution of localized charge states in a full polaron model for two widely used benchmark-systems (tris­(8-hydroxyquinolinato)­aluminum (Alq₃) and <i>N,N</i>′-bis­(1-naphthyl)-<i>N,N</i>′-diphenyl-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine (α-NPD)) and accurately reproduce the experimental charge carrier mobility over a range of 4 orders of magnitude. The method can be generalized to determine electronic and optical properties of more complex systems, e.g. guest–host morphologies, organic–organic interfaces, and thus offers the potential to significantly contribute to de novo materials design

Spin-Crossover and Massive Anisotropy Switching of 5d Transition Metal Atoms on Graphene Nanoflakes

In spin crossover phenomena, the magnetic moment of a molecule is switched by external means. Here we theoretically predict that several 5d-transition metals (TMs) adsorbed on finite graphene flakes undergo a spin crossover, resulting from multiple adsorption minima, that are absent in the zero-dimensional limit of benzene and the two-dimensional limit of graphene. The different spin states are stable at finite temperature and can be reversibly switched with an electric field. The system undergoes a change in magnetic anisotropy upon spin crossover, which facilitates read-out of the spin state. The TM-decorated nanoflakes thus act as fully controlled single-ion magnetic switches

Highly Selective Dispersion of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes via Polymer Wrapping: A Combinatorial Study via Modular Conjugation

Fourteen different “hairy-rod” conjugated polymers, 9,9-dioctylfluorene derivatives entailing 1,2,3-triazole, azomethine, ethynyle, biphenyle, stilbene, and azobenzene lateral units, are synthesized via modular conjugation and are systematically investigated with respect to their ability to selectively disperse SWCNTs. Four polymers of the azomethine type, with unprecedented selectivity toward dispersing (8,7), (7,6), and (9,5) SWCNT species, have been identified. In particular, azomethine polymers, herein applied for the first time for SWCNT dispersion, have been evidenced to be very effective in the highly selective solubilization of SWCNTs. The experimentally observed selectivity results are unambiguously supported by molecular dynamics simulations that account for the geometrical properties and deformation energy landscape of the polymer. Specifically, the calculations accurately and with high precision predict the experimentally observed selectivity for the (7,6) and (9,5) conformations