A corannulene-based donor-acceptor polymer for organic field-effect transistors

For the first time, the corannulene unit was incorporated directly into the backbone of conjugated polymers. A new donor-acceptor (D-A) copolymer PICBT using imide-fused corannulene as acceptor was synthesized and its performance in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) was tested. PICBT exhibited ambipolar transporting property with a hole mobility of 0.025 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) and electron mobility of 7.45 x 10(-5) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) when the substrates were treated with octyltrimethoxysilane (OTS). If the substrates were not modified with OTS, PICBT showed lower device performances with a hole mobility of 4.62 x 10(-3) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) and electron mobility of 1.54 x 10(-4) cm(2) V-1 s(-1). The device performances are competitive among the amorphous materials. This work paved the way for incorporating the corannulene unit into conjugated materials.