Rubrene untwisted: common density functional theory calculations overestimate its deviant tendencies

The exceptionally high carrier mobility of rubrene derives from the combination of its intrinsic electronic properties and favorable crystal packing that facilitates charge transport. Unlike the planar conformations adopted by rubrene single crystals, however, many rubrene derivatives crystallize with a twisted tetracene core and exhibit poor carrier mobility. Typical density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest that the twisted conformation is preferred by ∼10–14 kJ mol−1 or more in the gas phase. However, the present work shows that those calculations overestimate the twisting energy by several kJ mol−1 due to density-driven delocalization error, and that the twisting energies are actually only ∼8–10 kJ mol−1 for typical rubrene derivatives when computed with higher-level correlated wave function models. This result has two significant implications for crystal engineering with rubrene derivatives: first, DFT calculations can erroneously predict polymorphs containing twisted rubrene conformations to be more stable, when in fact structures with planar conformations are preferred, as is demonstrated here for perfluororubrene. Second, the smaller twisting energies make it more likely that solid form screening could discover new planar-core polymorphs of rubrene derivatives that have previously been crystallized only in a twisted conformation. These in turn might exhibit better organic semiconducting properties.