Theoretical insights into the 1D-charge transport properties in a series of hexaazatrinaphthylene-based discotic molecules.

Discotic liquid crystal (DLC) materials have attracted considerable attention mainly due to their high charge carrier mobilities in quasi-one-dimensional columns. In this article, five hexaazatrinaphthylene-based DLC molecules were investigated theoretically, and their frontier molecular orbital energy levels, crystal structures, and electron/hole drift mobilities were calculated by combination of density functional theory (DFT) and semiclassical Marcus charge transfer theory. The systems studied in this work include three experimentally reported molecules (1, 2, and 3) and two theoretically designed molecules (4 and 5). Compared with the 1-3 compounds, 4 and 5 have three more extended benzene rings in the π-conjugated core. The present results show that the orders of the frontier molecular orbital energy levels and electron drift mobilities agree very well with the experiment. For 4 and 5, the electron/hole reorganization energies are lower than those of compounds 1-3. Furthermore, the calculated electron/hole transfer integral of 5 is the largest among all the five systems, leading to the highest electron and hole mobilities. In addition, the hydrophobicity and solubility were also evaluated by DFT, indicating that compound 5 has good hydrophobicity and good solubility in trichloromethane. As a result, it is expected that compound 5 can be a potential charge transport material in electronic and optoelectronic devices. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.