Photophysical and electrochemical study of organic semiconductor gels

Abstract

Polysilsesquioxane-based gels with Aromatic diimides (Ads) have great technological potential. Their efficiency as organic semiconductors may be enhanced with modifications in the 3D netwrok structure, for example, increasing the number of aggregated molecules in a specific conformation, to favor electronic delocalization, or by the mixture with other molecules with specific electrochemical properties. This research proposal aims the development of three kinds of gels: 1) aromatic diimides polysilsequioxane gels to study the origin and the deactivation of the photo- and electro-chromic events; 2) multicomponent polymeric gels: adding electron-donor species to the polysilsequioxane gels to maximize charge transfer process.; 3) multicomponent supramolecular gels: mixing electron-acceptor gellation agents , aromatic diimides and viologen derivatives; 4) expand the series of hybrid molecules: forming hybrid materials based on niobates and naphthalene diimides. We plan to correlate the photo and electrochemical properties of the gels with its composition and its network structure by spectroelectrochemical techniques, fluorescence, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, electron spin-resonance, circular dichroism, scattering and x-rays diffraction, transmission and sweeping electron microscopies (CrioTEM and SEM). Some applications as batteries and sensors may be tested too. (AU)