Design and synthesis of new organic semiconductors for organic electronics, and fundamental understanding of the associated electronic processes.

New electronic constituents including donors, acceptors and quinoidal building blocks are developed to offer both chemistry tools and new material design rules for high performance electronic materials.

Recent publications:

Liu, X.; He, B.; Anderson, C.; Kang, J.; Chen, T.; Chen, J.; Feng, S.; Zhang, L.; Kolaczkowski, M.; Teat, S.; Brady, M.; Zhu, C.; Wang, L.; Chen, J.;* Liu, Y.* “para-Azaquinodimethane: a Compact Quinodimethane Variant as an Ambient Stable Building Block for High Performance Low Band Gap Polymers”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2017, 139, 8355-8363.

Zhang, Y.; Hanifi, D. A.; Fernández-Liencres, M. P.; Klivansky, L. M.; Ma, B.; Navarro, A.;* Liu, Y.^* “Understanding Electron Transport in Disk-Shaped Triphenylene-Tris(naphthaleneimidazole)s through Structural Modification and Theoretical Investigation”, ACS. Appl. Mater. Interface 2017, 9, 20010–20019.

Kolaczkowski, M.; He, B.; Liu, Y.* “Stepwise Bay Annulation of Indigo for the Synthesis of Desymmetrized Electron Acceptors and Donor-Acceptor Constructs”, Org. Lett. 2016, 18, 5524-5527.

He, B.; Zherebetskyy, D.; Wang, H.; Kolaczkowski, M. A.; Klivansky, L. M.; Tan, T.; Wang, L.; Liu, Y.* “Rational Tuning of the High Energy Visible Light Absorption for Panchromatic Small Molecules by a Two-Dimensional Conjugation Approach”, Chem. Sci. 2016, 7, 3857-3861.

He, B.; Neo, W. T.; Chen, T. L.; Klivansky, L.; Wang, H.; Tan T.; Teat, S. J.; Xu, J.;* Liu, Y.* “Low Bandgap Conjugated Polymers Based on a Novel Bay-Annulated Indigo (BAI) Acceptor as Highly Stable Electrochromic Materials”, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2016, 4, 2797-2805.

He, B.; Dai, J.; Zherebetskyy, D.; Chen, T. L.; Zhang, B. A.; Teat, S. J.; Zhang, Q.; Wang, L.-W.; Liu, Y.* “A Divergent Route to Core- and Peripherally Functionalized Diazacoronenes that Act As Colorimetric and Fluorescence Proton Sensors”, Chem. Sci. 2015, 6, 3180-3186.

He, B.; Zhang, B. A.; Liu, F.; Navarro, A.; Fernández-Liencres, M. P.; Lu, R.; Lo, K.; Russell, T.; Liu, Y.* “Electronic and Morphological Studies of Conjugated Polymers Incorporating a Disk-Shaped Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Unit”, ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces. 2015, 7, 20034-20045.

He, B.; Pun, A. B.; Zherebetskyy, D.; Liu, Y.; Liu, F.; Klivansky, L.; McGough, A.; Zhang, B. A.; Lo, K.; Russell, T.; Wang, L.-W.; Liu, Y.* “New Form of an Old Natural Dye: Bay-Annulated Indigo (BAI) as an Excellent Electron Accepting Unit for High Performance Organic Semiconductors” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 15093-15101.

Zhang, Y.; Hanifi, D.; Lim, E.; Chourou, S.; Alvarez, S.; Pun, A.; Hexemer, A.; Ma, B.; Liu, Y.* “Enhancing the Performance of Solution-Processed n-Type Organic Field-Effect Transistors by Blending with Molecular ‘Aligner’”, Adv. Mater. 2014, 26, 1223-1228.

He, B.; Pun, A. B.; Klivansky, L. M.; McGough, A.; Ye, Y.; Zhu, J.; Guo, J.; Teat, S. J.; Liu, Y.* “Thiophene Fused Azacoronenes: Regioselective Synthesis, Self Organization, Charge Transport, and Its Incorporation in Conjugated Polymers”, Chem. Mater. 2014, 26, 3920-3927.

Klivansky, L. M.; Hanifi, D.; Koshkakaryan, G.; Holycross, D. R.; Gorski, E. K.; Wu, Q.; Chai, M.; Liu, Y.* “A complementary disk-shaped p-electron donor-acceptor pair with high binding affinity”, Chem. Sci. 2012, 3, 2009-2014.

Zhang, Y.; Hanifi, D.; Alvarez, S.; Antonio, F.; Pun, A.; Klivansky, L. M.; Hexemer, A.; Ma, B.; Liu, Y.* “Charge Transport Anisotropy in n-Type Disk-Shaped Triphenylene-Tris(aroyleneimidazole)s”, Org. Lett. 2011, 13, 6528-6531.

Collaborators:

Prof. Junwu Chen, South China University of Technology

Prof. Amparo Navarro, Universidad de Jaen

Dr. Chenhui Zhu and Dr. Alex Hexemer, ALS@LBL

Prof. Jianwei Xu, National University of Singapore