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Grain Boundary Pinning Strategy for Enhanced Aggregate State in Organic Semiconductor Thin Films Toward
Quan Gao1, Kexin Tan1, Jiannan Qi1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials for Intelligent Sensing & Key Laboratory of Organic Integrated Circuit, Ministry of Education & Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences & Department of Chemistry, Institute of Molecular Aggregation Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.
Abstract:
Flexible gas sensors based on organic semiconductors (OSCs) show great promise for diverse applications, yet their practical application is hindered by the limited operational and shelf stability of OSC-based gas sensors over a wide temperature range. Herein, we developed a universal grain boundary pinning strategy to cooperatively optimize the aggregate state stability, sensitivity, and selectivity of the ultrathin OSC film. By incorporating multi-functional Au nanoclusters into the OSC layer, the thermally activated molecular motion and grain boundary migration can be inhibited by the cooperative effect of strain-balancing and dipole-π interactions. Consequently, the NH3 sensor based on 5 nm ultrathin film exhibits record stability over an extended shelf period (tested shelf life of one-year, theoretical shelf life of 14.8 years) and across a wide temperature range (RT-100°C on polymer substrate, RT-180°C on SiO2 substrate). The grain boundary pinning strategy is demonstrated to be universal across multiple OSC systems, underscoring its potential to enable robust, high-performance flexible gas sensors for widespread commercialization.
