Ambipolar organic semiconductors, especially those with high and balanced hole and electron mobility, have potential applications in complementary circuits and light-emitting transistors. Although great progress has been made, organic ambipolar semiconductors with high and balanced performance are still rare.

Hongxiang Li and co-workers at Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, prepared thiazolothiazole-containing ambipolar semiconductors including DPCO-TTFZTT (pictured). This material was synthesized from 5-hexanoyl-2,2’-bithiophene. The resultant cystals were shown to adopt herringbone packing and strong S–S and S–π intermolecular interactions were found among neighboring molecules, which form a two-dimensional network in the crystals.

DPCO-TTFZTT-based devices displayed good transistor performance with balanced ambipolar performance. The hole and electron mobilities were 2.41·10^–2 cm²V^–1s^–1 and 2.36·10^–2 cm²V^–1s^–1, respectively, which are some of the highest values obtained for thiazolothiazole derivatives.

• Thiazolothiazole-Containing Ambipolar Organic Semiconductor with Balanced Hole and Electron Mobility,
  Yuanyuan Wang, Qiuliu Huang, Zhiqiang Liu, Hongxiang Li,
  Asian J. Org. Chem. 2014, 3, 134–139.
  DOI: 10.1002/ajoc.201300184