Structural dependence of MEH-PPV chromism in solution

Computational Approaches for Organic Semiconductors: From Chemical and Physical Understanding to Predicting New Materials

While a complete understanding of organic semiconductor (OSC) design principles remains elusive, computational methods─ranging from techniques based in classical and quantum mechanics to more recent data-enabled models─can complement experimental observations and provide deep physicochemical insights into OSC structure-processing-property relationships, offering new capabilities for in silico OSC discovery and design. In this Review, we trace the evolution of these computational methods and their application to OSCs, beginning with early quantum-chemical methods to investigate resonance in benzene and building to recent machine-learning (ML) techniques and their application to ever more sophisticated OSC scientific and engineering challenges. Along the way, we highlight the limitations of the methods and how sophisticated physical and mathematical frameworks have been created to overcome those limitations. We illustrate applications of these methods to a range of specific challenges in OSCs derived from π-conjugated polymers and molecules, including predicting charge-carrier transport, modeling chain conformations and bulk morphology, estimating thermomechanical properties, and describing phonons and thermal transport, to name a few. Through these examples, we demonstrate how advances in computational methods accelerate the deployment of OSCsin wide-ranging technologies, such as organic photovoltaics (OPVs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic thermoelectrics, organic batteries, and organic (bio)sensors. We conclude by providing an outlook for the future development of computational techniques to discover and assess the properties of high-performing OSCs with greater accuracy.

Solvent influence on molecular interactions in the bulk of fluorene copolymer films

The effect of intermolecular interactions between the chains of the amorphous PFO–MEH-PPV films built from toluene and tetrahydrofuran (THF) were studied by atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, applying a successive solvent removal procedure. In the good solvent toluene, the incidence of topological entanglements is more significant. While in the poor solvent, coplanar interactions between neighbouring segments of the chains were also found, which is characteristics of cohesional entanglements. Structure factor curves of the films showed three peaks associated with the microstructure of the film, as previously reported by WAX diffractogram measurements. Moreover, the good solvent promotes more flexibility in dihedral angles, and the chains become nearer to each other.

The effect of intermolecular interactions between the chains of the amorphous PFO–MEH-PPV films built from toluene and tetrahydrofuran (THF) were studied by atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, applying a successive solvent removal procedure.