Specific Indolo[3,2,1-jk]carbazole Conducting Thin-film Materials Production by Selective Substitution

Selectively substituted indolo[3,2,1-jk] carbazole (IC) molecules have been synthesized through flash vacuum pyrolysis (FVP) and then electro-oxidized, resulting in the formation of redox-active and electronically conducting thin films consisting exclusively of three highly luminescent dimer species, the 2,2'-, 2,10'-, and 10,10'-coupled dimers. DFT calculation has enabled both the accurate calculation of monomer oxidation potentials and the prediction of the nature of the resulting dimers through consideration of the coupling of the oxidized monomer radical cations. This demonstrates that substituted ICs represent a class of molecules able to form redox-active and conducting dimer films of controlled composition upon oxidation and that DFT calculations can be used to inform the synthesis of specific IC monomers most likely to both produce electronically conducting thin-film materials and yield specific luminescent dimers with desirable materials properties.