Abstract
Acenes can be thought of as one-dimensional strips of graphene and they have the potential to be used in the next generation of electronic devices. However, because acenes larger than pentacene have been found to be unstable, it was generally accepted that they would not be particularly useful materials under normal conditions. Here, we show that, by using a physical vapour-transport method, platelet-shaped crystals of hexacene can be prepared from a monoketone precursor. These crystals are stable in the dark for a long period of time under ambient conditions. In the crystal, the molecules are arranged in herringbone arrays, quite similar to that observed for pentacene. A field-effect transistor made using a single crystal of hexacene displayed a hole mobility significantly higher than that of pentacene. This result suggests that it might be instructive to further explore the potential of other higher acenes.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank D.-L.M. Tzou and M.-M. Chen (Academia Sinica) for measuring the CP-MAS 13C NMR spectrum. Computations were carried out using the computer facilities at the Academia Sinica Computing Center. This work was supported by the National Science Council and Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
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M.W. designed and performed the experiments and theoretical calculations. Y.J.C. measured and analysed the data. S.W.L. and M.M.I. designed the devices and analysed the data. T.H.C. and C.H.Y. fabricated the devices. K.G. carried out X-ray diffraction analysis on the crystals. M.W., Y.T.T. and T.S. co-wrote the paper. T.J.C. supervised the project.
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Crystallographic data for hexacene using Cu radiation. (CIF 28 kb)
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Crystallographic data for hexacene using Mo radiation. (CIF 29 kb)
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Watanabe, M., Chang, Y., Liu, SW. et al. The synthesis, crystal structure and charge-transport properties of hexacene. Nature Chem 4, 574–578 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1381
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1381
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