N-Heteropentacenes and N-Heteropentacenequinones: From Molecules to Semiconductors

N-Heteropentacenes and their derivatives have been recently discovered as a new family of organic semiconductors exhibiting high performance in organic field effect transistors (OFETs). Introducing nitrogen atoms to the pentacene moiety leads to a large number of structurally related p-backbones with tunable electronic structures, stability, solubility, and molecular packing. This gives considerable freedom when designing organic semiconductors and provides good opportunities for studying structure-property relationships. In this account, efforts on developing N-heteropentacenes and N-heteropentacenequinones as organic semiconductors are reviewed, with focus on the recent work of our own group.