ERIC Number: EJ1195703
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-Sep
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: N/A
Introduction to Organic Semiconductors Using Accessible Undergraduate Chemistry Concepts
Journal of Chemical Education, v95 n9 p1500-1511 Sep 2018
Organic semiconductors (OSCs) are making great progress as active components in alternative energy and flexible electronics technologies that are of interest to many undergraduates. However, in materials governed by the confluence of multiple length scales (molecular (Angstrom), intermolecular (nm), domain (100s nm)), providing a pedagogically accessible pathway to incorporating OSCs into undergraduate education can be difficult. Here, we provide a multiscale description of OSCs that relies only on concepts covered in typical undergraduate chemistry and chemical engineering curricula: a tight-binding description of molecular orbitals using Hückel theory, the miscibility of intermolecular domains using thermodynamic principles based on the Ising spin model, the incorporation of thermal disorder of both the electronic and molecular states using the Boltzmann distribution, and a simple description of charge percolation using low-level graph theory. We illustrate these topics on a small organic molecule, 1,3,5-hexatriene, simple enough to be utilized in an undergraduate course without resorting to opaque metrics.
Descriptors: Organic Chemistry, College Science, Undergraduate Students, Scientific Concepts, Chemical Engineering, Undergraduate Study, Thermodynamics, Science Instruction
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A