A Facile Method to Preparation of Amphiphilic Perylene Tetracarboxylic Diimide/ZnS Hybrid Nanocomposites and Improved Semiconducting Property

Abstract

A self-assembled film of an amphiphilic perylene tetracarboxylic diimide derivative (N-hexane-N'-(1-phenyl-4-aminoethanol)-1,7-di (4-tert-butylphenoxy) perylene-3,4;9,10-tetracarboxylate diimide, HH-PDI) has been used as the organic template to produce the first example of monodispersed nanoparticles of HH-PDI/ZnS composites. The HH-PDI pure film and HH-PDI/ZnS nanocomposites were characterized by UV-vis absorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and current-voltage (I-V) measurements. Experimental results revealed the film crystallinity and general molecular order for HH-PDI molecules in the nanocomposites are improved effectively in comparison with those in the pure film due to the introduction of ZnS nanocrystals. The electrical conductivity of the HH-PDI/ZnS nanocomposites (6.6×10-5 S cm-1) is more than ca. 2 order of magnitude higher than that of (3.6×10-7 S cm-1). The present result provides an efficient way to improve the performance of organic semiconductors through introducing inorganic semiconducting nanocrystals.