Inhibiting Low-Frequency Vibrations Explains Exceptionally High Electron Mobility in 2,5-Difluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F-TCNQ) Single Crystals.

Organic electronics requires materials with high charge mobility. Despite decades of intensive research, charge transport in high-mobility organic semiconductors has not been well understood. In this Letter, we address the physical mechanism underlying the exceptionally high band-like electron mobility in F-TCNQ (2,5-difluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane) single crystals among a crystal family of similar compounds F-TCNQ (n = 0, 2, 4) using a combined experimental and theoretical approach. While electron transfer integrals and reorganization energies did not show outstanding features for F-TCNQ, Raman spectroscopy and solid-state DFT indicated that the frequency of the lowest vibrational mode is nearly twice higher in the F-TCNQ crystal than in TCNQ and F-TCNQ. This phenomenon is explained by the specific packing motif of F-TCNQ with only one molecule per primitive cell so that electron-phonon interaction decreases and the electron mobility increases. We anticipate that our findings will encourage investigators for the search and design of organic semiconductors with one molecule per primitive cell and/or the poor low-frequency vibrational spectrum.