Supramolecular Electronics Derived from Porphyrin-like Pigments

The field of organic based electronics has become a blossoming area of intensive study during the past decade. The promise of a cheaper and easier-to-process alternative to inorganic based semiconductor materials makes these materials highly desirable. Additionally, organic based electronics can be made into flexible structures, allowing for the fabrication of visual displays that can be folded or rolled-up. The two most widely investigated classes of organic materials have been small-molecule and polymer based. While small molecule based materials are easily purified and form single crystalline materials with high mobilities, they are energy intensive and difficult to process. Conversely, polymeric materials are easily processed and synthesized, yet their heterogenous composition of molecular weights can affect carrier mobility through low crystalline ordering. The burgeoning area of interest involved with supramolecular chemistry may help to alleviate the setbacks of molecular and polymeric organic electronics. Supramolecular based electronics involve non-covalent ordering of building blocks that can create diverse, responsive, and ordered structures. The most well-studied interactions include hydrogen bonding, host-guest chemistry, and π-π interactions. These self-assembled structures hold promise as complex, organized, one or two dimensional structures can be formed from single molecules over relatively long distances. The precise ordering of structures makes them desirable for directional exciton or charge transport which is fundamental to many organic electronic devices such as photovoltaics, organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), and organic field-effect transistors (OFETs).