Electron-transporting boron-doped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons:Facile synthesis and heteroatom doping positions-modulated optoelectronic properties

While heteroatom doping serves as a powerful strategy for devising novel polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs), the further fine-tuning of optoelectronic properties via the precisely altering of doping patterns remains a challenge. Herein, by changing the doping positions of heteroatoms in a diindenopyrene skeleton, we report two isomeric boron, sulfur-embedded PAHs, named Anti-B_(2)S_(2) and Syn-B_(2)S_(2), as electron transporting semiconductors. Detailed structure-property relationship studies revealed that the varied heteroatom positions not only change their physicochemical properties, but also largely affect their solid-state packing modes and Lewis base-triggered photophysical responses. With their low-lying frontier molecular orbital levels, n-type characteristics with electron mobilities up to 1.5 × 10^(-3)cm^(2)V^(-1)s^(-1)were achieved in solution-processed organic field-effect transistors. Our work revealed the critical role of controlling heteroatom doping patterns for designing advanced PAHs.