title: Self-assembled gelators for organic electronics.
abstract: Nature excels at engineering materials by using the principles of chemical synthesis and molecular self-assembly with the help of noncovalent forces. Learning from these phenomena, scientists have been able to create a variety of self-assembled artificial materials of different size, shapes, and properties for wide ranging applications. An area of great interest in this regard is solvent-assisted gel formation with functional organic molecules, thus leading to one-dimensional fibers. Such fibers have improved electronic properties and are potential soft materials for organic electronic devices, particularly in bulk heterojunction solar cells. Described herein is how molecular self-assembly, which was originally proposed as a simple laboratory curiosity, has helped the evolution of a variety of soft functional materials useful for advanced electronic devices such as organic field-effect transistors and organic solar cells. Highlights on some of the recent developments are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Photosciences and Photonics Group, Chemical Sciences and Technologies Division, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), CSIR, Trivandrum, India.
authors.forename: Sukumaran Santhosh
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Babu
authors.forename: Seelam
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Prasanthkumar
authors.forename: Ayyappanpillai
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ajayaghosh