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High-performance thermal insulators represented by aerogels are regarded as one of the most promising materials for energy savings. However, significantly low mechanical strength has been a barrier for aerogels to be utilized in various social domains such as houses, buildings, and industrial plants. Here, we report a synthetic strategy to realize highly transparent aerogels with unusually high bending flexibility based on poly(methylsilsesquioxane) (PMSQ) network. We have constructed mesoscopic fine fiber-like structures of various sizes in PMSQ gels by the combination of phase separation suppression by tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAOH) and mesoscopic fiber-like assembly by nonionic poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(propylene oxide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO-b-PPO-b-PEO) type surfactant. The optimized mesoscale structures of PMSQ gels have realized highly transparent and resilient monolithic aerogels with much high bendability compared to those reported in previous works. This work will provide a way to highly insulating materials with glasslike transparency and high mechanical flexibility.

Accelerating reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) without sacrificing fast radiative decay is effective in suppressing efficiency roll-off (eRO) in thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF)-based organic light-emitting diodes. We here report a TADF emitter, CC-TXO-I, combining a bicarbazole donor (CC) and a sulfur-containing acceptor (TXO). The CC is used to accelerate radiative decay via moderate donor-acceptor torsion angle, and the TXO is expected to provide fast RISC by the heavy-atom effect. We realized very large rate constants of RISC (kRISCs) of ∼10⁷ s⁻¹. Both kRISCs and rate constants of radiative decay of CC-TXO-I increased with increasing doping concentration, resulting in improved eROs.

Molecules that exhibit multiple resonance (MR) type thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) are highly efficient electroluminescent materials with narrow emission spectra. Despite their importance in various applications, the emission mechanism is still controversial. Here, a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism for a representative MR-TADF molecule (5, 9-diphenyl-5, 9-diaza-13b-boranaphtho[3, 2, 1-de]anthracene, DABNA-1) is presented. Using the equation-of-motion coupled-cluster singles and doubles method and Fermi’s golden rule, we quantitatively reproduced all rate constants relevant to the emission mechanism; prompt and delayed fluorescence, internal conversion (IC), intersystem crossing, and reverse intersystem crossing (RISC). In addition, the photoluminescence quantum yield and its prompt and delayed contributions were quantified by calculating the population kinetics of excited states and the transient photoluminescence decay curve. The calculations also revealed that TADF occurred via a stepwise process of 1) thermally activated IC from the electronically excited lowest triplet state T₁ to the second-lowest triplet state T₂, 2) RISC from T₂ to the lowest excited singlet state S₁, and 3) fluorescence from S₁.

The members of the imidazole family have been widely used for electron transporting, host, conventional fluorescent, and phosphorescent materials. Although the imidazole core also has great potential as an acceptor segment of deep-blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) owing to its high triplet energy, the emission color of imidazole-based TADF organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has so far been limited to blue to green. In this work, four acridan-imidazole systems are theoretically designed aiming for deep- or pure-blue emitters. All four emitters exhibit deep-blue to blue emission owing to the high energy levels of the lowest excited singlet states, exhibiting y coordinates of Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage coordinates between 0.06 and 0.26. The molecule composed of a trifluoromethyl-substituted benzimidazole acceptor in combination with a tetramethyl-9, 10-dihydroacridine donor (named MAc-FBI) achieves a high maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEMAX) of 13.7% in its application to vacuum-processed OLEDs. The emitter has high solubility even in ecofriendly nonhalogenated solvents, which motivates us to fabricate solution-processed MAc-FBI-based OLEDs, resulting in an even higher EQEMAX of 16.1%.

We utilized nanoporous mayenite (12CaO·7Al₂O₃), a cost-effective material, in the hydride state (H⁻) to explore the possibility of its use for hydrogen storage and transportation. Hydrogen desorption occurs by a simple reaction of mayenite with water, and the nanocage structure transforms into a calcium aluminate hydrate. This reaction enables easy desorption of H⁻ ions trapped in the structure, which could allow the use of this material in future portable applications. Additionally, this material is 100% recyclable because the cage structure can be recovered by heat treatment after hydrogen desorption. The presence of hydrogen molecules as H⁻ ions was confirmed by ¹H-NMR, gas chromatography, and neutron diffraction analyses. We confirmed the hydrogen state stability inside the mayenite cage by the first-principles calculations to understand the adsorption mechanism and storage capacity and to provide a key for the use of mayenite as a portable hydrogen storage material. Further, we succeeded in introducing H⁻ directly from OH⁻ by a simple process compared with previous studies that used long treatment durations and required careful control of humidity and oxygen gas to form O₂ species before the introduction of H⁻.

Singlet fission (SF) materials have the potential to overcome the traditional external quantum efficiency limits of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this study, we theoretically designed an intramolecular SF molecule, 5, 5′-bitetracene (55BT), in which two tetracene units were directly connected through a C–C bond. Using quantum chemical calculation and the Fermi golden rule, we show that 55BT undergoes efficient SF induced by geometry relaxation in a locally excited singlet state, ¹(S0S1). Compared with another high-performing SF system, the tetracene dimer in the crystalline state, 55BT has advantages when used in doped systems owing to covalent bonding of the two tetracene units. This feature makes 55BT a promising candidate triplet sensitizer for near-infrared OLEDs.

In organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), all triplet excitons can be harvested as light via reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters. To realize efficient TADF, RISC should be fast. Thus, to accomplish rapid RISC, in the present study, a novel TADF emitter, namely, TpIBT-tFFO, was reported. TpIBT-tFFO was compared with IB-TRZ, which contains the same electron donor and acceptor segments, specifically iminodibenzyl and triazine moieties. TpIBT-tFFO is based on a recently proposed molecular design strategy called tilted face-to-face alignment with optimal distance (tFFO), whereas IB-TRZ is a conventional through-bond type molecule. According to quantum chemical calculations, a very large RISC rate constant, kRISC, was expected for TpIBT-tFFO because not only the lowest triplet state but also the second lowest triplet state were close to the lowest excited singlet state, as designed in the tFFO strategy. IB-TRZ has two different conformers, leading to dual emission. Conversely, owing to excellent packing, the conformation was fixed to one in the tFFO system, resulting in single-peaked emission for TpIBT-tFFO. TpIBT-tFFO displayed TADF type behavior and afforded higher photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) compared to IB-TRZ. The kRISC of TpIBT-tFFO was determined at 6.9 × 106 s−1, which is one of the highest values among molecules composed of only H, C, and N atoms. The external quantum efficiency of the TpIBT-tFFO-based OLED was much higher than that of the IB-TRZ-based one. The present study confirms the effectiveness of the tFFO design to realize rapid RISC. The tFFO-based emitters were found to exhibit an additional feature, enabling the control of the molecular conformations of the donor and/or acceptor segments.

In amorphous organic semiconducting systems, hole and electron transfer has been considered to occur based on the overlap of highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMOs) and that of lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals (LUMOs) between two adjacent molecules, respectively. Other molecular orbitals (MOs), HOMO−1, HOMO−2, … and LUMO+1, LUMO+2, …, have been neglected in charge transport calculations. However, these MOs could potentially contribute to charge transport. In this study, our multiscale simulations show that carriers are effectively transported not only via HOMOs or LUMOs but also via other MOs when the MOs are close in energy. Because these multiple MOs are active in charge transports, here we call them multiple frontier orbitals. Molecules with multiple frontier orbitals are found to possess high carrier mobility. The findings in this study provide guidelines to aid design of materials with excellent charge transport properties.

Aerogels are porous materials but show poor mechanical properties and limited functionality, which significantly restrict their practical applications. Preparation of highly bendable and processable aerogels with multifunctionality remains a challenge. Herein we report unprecedented superflexible aerogels based on polyvinylpolydimethylsiloxane (PVPDMS) networks, PVPDMS/polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane (PVPMS) copolymer networks, and PVPDMS/PVPMS/graphene nanocomposites by a facile radical polymerization/hydrolytic polycondensation strategy and ambient pressure drying or freeze drying. The aerogels have a doubly cross‐linked organic–inorganic network structure consisting of flexible polydimethylsiloxanes and hydrocarbon chains with tunable cross‐linking density, tunable pore size and bulk density. They have a high hydrophobicity and superflexibility and combine selective absorption, efficient separation of oil and water, thermal superinsulation, and strain sensing.

Understanding charge transports in organic films is important for both fundamental science and practical applications. Here, contributions of off-diagonal (structural) and diagonal (energetic) disorders to charge transports were clarified using molecular-based multiscale simulation. These disorders, important for understanding charge transport in organic systems, are investigated by comparing crystal and amorphous aggregates of N, N′-diphenyl-N, N′-bis(1-naphthyl)-1, 1′-biphenyl-4, 4′-diamine (NPD). Although NPD has been used as a hole transport material, it also exhibits comparable electron mobility experimentally. The experimental mobility and its electric field dependence in amorphous layers were reasonably reproduced by the multiscale simulation, confirming the electron transport properties of NPD. We assumed that the structural disorder would lower mobilities; however, the mobilities were found to be independent of the degree of structural disorder. Energetic disorder markedly lowered charge mobility instead. Charge migration in crystals was dominated by maximum electronic coupling pairs, whereas small electronic coupling pairs significantly contributed to charge transport in amorphous aggregate.

Aerogels have many attractive properties but are usually costly and too friable, which always limit their practical applications. Besides, almost all of the reinforced aerogels sacrifice the transparency or superinsulating properties. Here we report unprecedented superflexible polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane ((CH2CH)n(CH3)SiO2/2) aerogels that are facilely prepared from a single precursor vinylmethyldimethoxysilane or vinylmethyldiethoxysilane without organic crosslinkers. It is based on a consecution of radical polymerization and hydrolytic polycondensation followed by ultralow-cost, highly scalable ambient pressure drying directly from alcohol as a drying medium without any modification and additional solvent exchange. The resulting aerogels and xerogels show a unique, homogeneous, tunable, highly porous, doubly crosslinked nanostructure with the elastic polymethylsiloxane network crosslinked with flexible hydrocarbon chains. An outstanding combination of ultralow cost, high scalability, uniform pore size, high surface area, high transparency, high hydrophobicity, excellent machinability, superflexibility in compression, superflexibility in bending and superinsulating properties has been achieved in a single aerogel and xerogel for the first time. This study represents a significant progress of porous materials and makes the practical applications of transparent flexible aerogel-based superinsulators realistic.

Aerogels are attractive porous materials but usually show poor mechanical properties and limited functionality, which significantly restrict their practical applications. Preparation of highly bendable and machinable aerogels with multifunctionality still remains a difficult challenge. Here we report unprecedented superflexible aerogels based on polyvinylpolydimethylsiloxane (PVPDMS) network, PVPDMS/polyvinylpolymethylsiloxane (PVPMS) copolymer network, and PVPDMS/PVPMS/graphene nanocomposite via a facile radical polymerization/hydrolytic polycondensation strategy followed by low-cost ambient pressure drying or freeze drying. The resulting aerogels possess a doubly cross-linked organic-inorganic network structure consisting of flexible polydimethylsiloxanes and hydrocarbon chains with tunable crosslinking density, and exhibit tunable pore size and bulk density, high hydrophobicity, excellent machinability, and superflexibility against both compression and bending. More importantly, they show multifunctionality combining selective absorption, efficient separation of oil and water, thermal superinsulation, and strain sensing. This study is expected to provide new concepts to synthesize multifunctional materials with a wide range of potential applications in absorbents, superinsulators, sensors, wearable electronics, etc.

Hopping-type charge transport in an amorphous thin layer composed of organic molecules is simulated by the combined use of molecular dynamics, quantum chemical, and Monte Carlo calculations. By explicitly considering the molecular structure and the disordered intermolecular packing, we reasonably reproduce the experimental hole and electron mobilities and their applied electric field dependence (Poole-Frenkel behaviour) without using any adjustable parameters. We find that the distribution of the density-of-states originating from the amorphous nature has a significant impact on both the mobilities and Poole-Frenkel behaviour. Detailed analysis is also provided to reveal the molecular-level origin of the charge transport, including the origin of Poole-Frenkel behaviour.

Transparent, monolithic aerogels with nanosized colloidal skeletons have been obtained from a single precursor of 1,2-bis(methyldiethoxysilyl)ethane (BMDEE) by adopting a liquid surfactant and a two-step process involving strong-acid, followed by strong-base, sol-gel reactions. This precursor BMDEE forms the ethylene-bridged polymethylsiloxane (EBPMS, O2/2(CH3)Si-CH2CH2-Si(CH3)O2/2) network, in which each silicon has one methyl, two bridging oxygens, and one bridging ethylene, exhibiting an analogous structure to that of the previously reported polymethylsilsesquioxane (PMSQ, CH3SiO3/2) aerogels having one methyl and three bridging oxygen atoms. Obtained aerogels consist of fine colloidal skeletons and show high visible-light transparency and a flexible deformation behavior against compression without collapse. Similar to the PMSQ aerogels, a careful tuning of synthetic conditions can produce low-density (0.19 g cm(-3)) and highly transparent (76% at 550 nm, corresponding to 10 mm thick samples) xerogels via ambient pressure drying by solvent evaporation due to their high strength and resilience against compression. Moreover, EBPMS aerogels exhibit higher bending strength and bending strain at break against the three-point bending mode compared to PMSQ aerogels. This improved bendability is presumably derived from the introduced ethylene-bridging parts, suggesting the potential for realizing transparent and bendable aerogels in such polysiloxane materials with organic linking units.

Efficient organic light-emitting diodes have been developed using emitters containing rare metals, such as platinum and iridium complexes. However, there is an urgent need to develop emitters composed of more abundant materials. Here we show a thermally activated delayed fluorescence material for organic light-emitting diodes, which realizes both approximately 100% photoluminescence quantum yield and approximately 100% up-conversion of the triplet to singlet excited state. The material contains electron-donating diphenylaminocarbazole and electron-accepting triphenyltriazine moieties. The typical trade-off between effective emission and triplet-to-singlet up-conversion is overcome by fine-tuning the highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital distributions. The nearly zero singlet-triplet energy gap, smaller than the thermal energy at room temperature, results in an organic light-emitting diode with external quantum efficiency of 29.6%. An external quantum efficiency of 41.5% is obtained when using an out-coupling sheet. The external quantum efficiency is 30.7% even at a high luminance of 3, 000 cd m(-2).

Liquid organic light-emitting diodes (liquid OLEDs) are unique devices consisting only of liquid organic semiconductors in the active layer, and the device performances have been investigated recently. However, the device degradation, especially, the origin has been unknown. In this study, we show that material degradation occurs in liquid OLEDs, whose active layer is composed of carbazole with an ethylene glycol chain. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments clearly exhibit that the dimerization reaction of carbazole moiety occurs in the liquid OLEDs during driving the devices. In contrast, cleavages of the ethylene glycol chain are not detected within experimental error. The dimerization reaction is considered to be related to the device degradation.

Organic superbases reacted with alkyl iodides (R–I) to reversibly generate the corresponding alkyl radicals (R•). Via this reaction, organic superbases were utilized as new and highly efficient organic catalysts in living radical polymerization. The superbase catalysts included guanidines, aminophosphines and phosphazenes. Low-polydispersity polymers (Mw/Mn = 1.1–1.4) were obtained up to high conversions (e.g., 80%) in reasonably short times (3–12 h) at mild temperatures (60–80 °C) for methyl methacrylate, styrene and several functional methacrylates. The high polymerization rate and good monomer versatility are attractive features of these superbase catalysts.

Well-defined diblock and triblock copolymers, star polymers, and concentrated polymer brushes on solid surfaces were prepared using living radical polymerization with organic catalysts. Polymerizations of methyl methacrylate, butyl acrylate, and selected functional methacrylates were performed with a monofunctional initiator, a difunctional initiator, a trifunctional initiator, and a surface-immobilized initiator.

Transparent and low-density methylsilsesquioxane (MSQ, CH3SiO1.5) aerogels can be obtained solely from methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMS) by a one-pot two-step process under the co-presence of surfactant. In the present study, we have systematically investigated the effects of the molecular structure of triblock copolymer-type nonionic surfactants PEO-b-PPO-b-PEO (PEO and PPO denote poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) units, respectively) on the properties of the resultant MSQ aerogels. Macroscopic phase separation of hydrophobic MSQ networks from polar solvent occurs when no surfactant is employed, which results in macroporous opaque aerogels. In contrast, a co-presence of appropriate surfactant effectively suppresses the phase separation and yields transparent aerogels after supercritical drying. By employing various surfactants having different molecular weight and PO/EO ratio, the mechanism of suppression of phase separation or pore formation is discussed in detail. In situ1H NMR suggests that the PO units of surfactant interact with the hydrophobic MSQ network enriched with methyl groups and make the MSQ network hydrophilic by extending EO chains toward the aqueous solvent in the late phase of gelation, until which hydrogen bonding dominates between the Si-OH groups of polymerizing MSQ and the ether oxygens of the EO unit. Through the comprehensive understanding of the role of surfactant, the strategy for rational design of MSQ aerogels materials has become developable.

The origin of the improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE) by the thermal annealing of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells, based on regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (rrP3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), is analyzed via solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). 1H spin-lattice relaxation experiments of solid-state NMR clearly reveal that the phase-separated heterojunction structure develops on the order of several tens of nanometers in rrP3HT/PCBM blend films with thermal annealing at 150 °C. The development of the phase-separated structure explains the increase in the PCE for the solar cell system from 0.7% to nearly 3% through the thermal annealing.

We theoretically propose a boron-containing molecule, hexaboracyclophane (HBCP), as an electron-transporting (ET) material with low-power loss. We calculate the vibronic coupling of HBCP, comparing them with those of other ET materials, tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum(III) (Alq3) and tris[3-(3-pyridyl)mesityl]borane (3TPYMB). Using the nonequilibrium Green's function method to evaluate their single molecular ET properties, we show that HBCP exhibits more efficient and lower-power consumption than Alq3 and 3TPYMB. HBCP has suitable highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy levels as an electron-transport layer when Alq3 is employed as an emitter.