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Tying Together Multiscale Calculations for Charge Transport in P3HT: Structural Descriptors, Morphology, and Tie-Chains
Polymers
  • Evan D. Miller, Boise State University
  • Matthew L. Jones, Boise State University
  • Eric Jankowski, Boise State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-1-2018
Abstract

Evaluating new, promising organic molecules to make next-generation organic optoelectronic devices necessitates the evaluation of charge carrier transport performance through the semi-conducting medium. In this work, we utilize quantum chemical calculations (QCC) and kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations to predict the zero-field hole mobilities of ~100 morphologies of the benchmark polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene), with varying simulation volume, structural order, and chain-length polydispersity. Morphologies with monodisperse chains were generated previously using an optimized molecular dynamics force-field and represent a spectrum of nanostructured order. We discover that a combined consideration of backbone clustering and system-wide disorder arising from side-chain conformations are correlated with hole mobility. Furthermore, we show that strongly interconnected thiophene backbones are required for efficient charge transport. This definitively shows the role “tie-chains” play in enabling mobile charges in P3HT. By marrying QCC and KMC over multiple length- and time-scales, we demonstrate that it is now possible to routinely probe the relationship between molecular nanostructure and device performance.

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Citation Information
Evan D. Miller, Matthew L. Jones and Eric Jankowski. "Tying Together Multiscale Calculations for Charge Transport in P3HT: Structural Descriptors, Morphology, and Tie-Chains" Polymers (2018)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/eric_jankowski/36/