Novel semiconducting quinone for air-stable n-type organic field-effect transistors.

Quinones are promising moieties for n-type organic semiconductors due to their high electron affinity. Benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene-4,8-dione derivative with a quinone moiety have been synthesized, characterized, and used as active layer of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). This derivative has deep LUMO level, leading to efficient charge-carrier injection and air stability. In addition, it forms a columnar structure with efficient intermolecular pi-pi and horizontal direction interactions, leading to high electron mobilities. In fact, OFET devices fabricated here showed good n-type characteristics, where the electron mobility was 0.15 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) under vacuum conditions and above 0.1 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) in air.