Functional Chiral Four-Coordinate Boron Compounds

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Agnieszka Nowak-Król
• Subject Area: Organic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428315927

The goal of the research program is the synthesis of helically chiral pi-conjugated four-coordinate boron compounds by a novel modular approach and exploration of their properties. Chiral dyes have the enormous potential benefits arising from the combination of optical and electronic functions of the pi-conjugated scaffolds with the information encoded in their geometry. They remain, however, largely underexplored in current technologies, mainly due to the lack of efficient synthetic methodologies. Our method offers possibility to prepare in a simple way a diversified library of monohelical and three-dimensional multihelical dyes and gives access to highly complex unprecedented fully pi-conjugated systems. Their properties will be systematically modified by structural variation, such as the electronic nature and bulkiness of the boron substituents and constituent building blocks. The organoboron compounds will be applied in organic solar cells and organic thin film transistors to investigate the role of chirality in the operation of devices. Moreover, the molecules will be studied for the chiral-induced spin selectivity. Not only will these molecules establish a new class of materials for organic electronics, but they will also allow to address important fundamental questions regarding charge and spin transport in organic semiconductors.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups