Charge Carrier Transport 1n 1:1 Complexes of Tetracyanobenzene with Naphthalene Anthracene and Durene

Abstract

It is well established that crystals of charge transfer (CT) complexes formed between aromatic donors and acceptors are built up of linear stacks of closely packed molecules. There are two main types of CT crystal structure, (i) a parallel arrangement of linear stacks made up of the individual component molecules, AAAA…DDDD… and (ii) a parallel arrangement of linear stacks made up of alternating molecules, ADADA… In each case it is to be expected that the intermolecular forces between the face to face packed molecules in each stack are far greater than those forces between stacks. A considerable anisotropy in physical properties which are a strong function of intermolecular interactions is a natural result of these crystal structures. Such anisotropy has been reported in the few crystals of the ADAD structure which have been examined, for example, in triplet exciton motion in biphenxl² and anthracene tetracyanobenzene (TCNB) complexes³,⁴ and in charge carrier mobilities μ in anthracene⁵ and phenthrene-pyromellitic-acid-dianhydride⁶ as well as anthracene-trinitrobenzene⁷. Carrier mobilities which were reported were all low, < 0.1 cm²/V sec., and though the major interesting questions were posed, such as what is the effect of different donors on μ?; or are there separate conduction and valence bands for acceptors and donors?; the dearth of mobility data on a range of materials leaves these questions unanswered. We have recently measured the mobilities of holes in several TCNB complexes as a first step towards understanding carrier transport in such materials. These are a particularly interesting series of materials in that triplet motion is said to be primarily two dimensional in anthracene TCNB³, and unidimensional in biphenyl TCNB². Since the transport of charge, like triplet exciton motion, is dominated by exchange interactions, and since CT triplet