Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 7, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/srep41013
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- IMPACT PhD studentship - UCL
- ISIS-Neutron and Muon Facility (Science and Technology Facilities Council)
- EU FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network CONTEST [PITN-GA-2012-317488]
- H2020 ETN SYNCHRONICS [643238]
- Leverhulme Trust grant (COZTRONICS)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Aviation and space applications can benefit significantly from lightweight organic electronics, now spanning from displays to logics, because of the vital importance of minimising payload (size and mass). It is thus crucial to assess the damage caused to such materials by cosmic rays and neutrons, which pose a variety of hazards through atomic displacements following neutron-nucleus collisions. Here we report the first study of the neutron radiation tolerance of two poly(thiophene)s-based organic semiconductors: poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl), P3HT, and the liquid-crystalline poly(2,5-bis(3-tetradecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene), PBTTT. We combine spectroscopic investigations with characterisation of intrinsic charge mobility to show that PBTTT exhibits significantly higher tolerance than P3HT. We explain this in terms of a superior chemical, structural and conformational stability of PBTTT, which can be ascribed to its higher crystallinity, in turn induced by a combination of molecular design features. Our approach can be used to develop design strategies for better neutron radiation-tolerant materials, thus paving the way for organic semiconductors to enter avionics and space applications.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available