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Zinc oxide (ZnO) is regarded as a promising alternative material for transparent conductive electrodes in optoelectronic devices. However, ZnO suffers from poor chemical stability. ZnO also has a moderate work function (WF), which results in substantial charge injection barriers into common (organic) semiconductors that constitute the active layer in a device. Controlling and tuning the ZnO WF is therefore necessary but challenging. Here, a variety of phosphonic acid based self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) deposited on ZnO surfaces are investigated. It is demonstrated that they allow the tuning the WF over a wide range of more than 1.5 eV, thus enabling the use of ZnO as both the hole-injecting and electron-injecting contact. The modified ZnO surfaces are characterized using a number of complementary techniques, demonstrating that the preparation protocol yields dense, well-defined molecular monolayers.
Macrocycles with quaterthiophene subunits were obtained by cyclooligomerization by direct oxidative coupling of unsubstituted dithiophene moieties. The rings were closed with high selectivity by an α,β′-connection of the thiophenes as proven by NMR spectroscopy. The reaction of the precursor with terthiophene moieties yielded the symmetric α,α′-linked macrocycle in low yield together with various differently connected isomers. Blocking of the β-position of the half-rings yielded selectively the α,α′-linked macrocycle. Selected cyclothiophenes were investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy, which displayed the formation of highly ordered 2D crystalline monolayers.