Bulky rigid substitutions: A route to high electron mobility and high solid-state luminescence efficiency of perylene diimide

•A perylene diimide derivative with bulky rigid substituents was synthesized.•This compound owns both high electron mobility and high fluorescence quantum yield.•The above phenomenon can be ascribed to its unique crystal structure.

In this paper, we report that a kind of perylene diimide derivative with bulky rigid substituents, 1,7-bis(p-tert-butylphenoxy)-N,N′-dicyclohexyl-perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (TBPCHPDI) possesses both high electron mobility (1.8 cm2 V−1s−1) and high fluorescence quantum yield (0.32) in the solid state. Through X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis absorption and fluorescence spectra, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements, it is demonstrated that the above phenomenon can be ascribed to the unique crystal structure of TBPCHPDI: due to steric hindrance of bulky rigid substituents, the intermolecular π–π actions are neglectable, providing high luminescence efficiency; in the mean time, the spacing between perylene chromophores is still very short (3.47 Å), which is favorable for the hopping transportation of charge carrier from one molecule to neighboring molecule. Therefore, our finding would help design and synthesize novel organic semiconductive materials with potential applications in electrically pumped lasers which require high emission efficiency when large current density is applied.

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