Monolayer Two-dimensional Molecular Crystals for an Ultrasensitive OFET-based Chemical Sensor

Haiyang Li; Yanjun Shi; Guangchao Han; Jie Liu; Jing Zhang; Chunlei Li; Jie Liu; Yuanping Yi; Tao Li; Xike Gao; Chongan Di; Jia Huang; Yanke Che; Dong Wang; Wenping Hu; Yunqi Liu; Lang Jiang

doi:10.1002/anie.201916397

Monolayer Two-dimensional Molecular Crystals for an Ultrasensitive OFET-based Chemical Sensor

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Mar 9;59(11):4380-4384. doi: 10.1002/anie.201916397. Epub 2020 Jan 29.

Authors

Haiyang Li¹, Yanjun Shi¹, Guangchao Han¹, Jie Liu¹, Jing Zhang¹, Chunlei Li¹, Jie Liu¹, Yuanping Yi¹, Tao Li², Xike Gao³, Chongan Di¹, Jia Huang⁴, Yanke Che¹, Dong Wang¹, Wenping Hu⁵, Yunqi Liu¹, Lang Jiang¹

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Key Laboratory of Thin Film and Microfabrication (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Self-Assembly Chemistry for Organic Functional Molecules, Center for Excellence in Molecular Synthesis, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200032, China.
⁴ Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China.
⁵ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Department of Chemistry, School of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.

Abstract

The sensitivity of conventional thin-film OFET-based sensors is limited by the diffusion of analytes through bulk films and remains the central challenge in sensing technology. Now, for the first time, an ultrasensitive (sub-ppb level) sensor is reported that exploits n-type monolayer molecular crystals (MMCs) with porous two-dimensional structures. Thanks to monolayer crystal structure of NDI3HU-DTYM2 (NDI) and controlled formation of porous structure, a world-record detection limit of NH₃ (0.1 ppb) was achieved. Moreover, the MMC-OFETs also enabled direct detection of solid analytes of biological amine derivatives, such as dopamine at an extremely low concentration of 500 ppb. The remarkably improved sensing performances of MMC-OFETs opens up the possibility of engineering OFETs for ultrasensitive (bio)chemical sensing.

Keywords: monolayer molecular crystals (MMCs); organic field-effect transistors (OFETs); porous crystals; sensors.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't