Theoretical comparative studies of charge mobilities for molecular materials: Pet versus bnpery

Charge mobility is the most important issue for organic semiconductors. We calculate the electron and hole mobilities for prototypical polycyclic hydrocarbon molecules, perylothiophene (pet) and benzo(g,h,i)-perylene (bnpery) using Marcus electron transfer theory coupled with a diabatic model and a homogeneous diffusion assumption to obtain the charge mobility. The first-principles DFT calculations show that the hole mobility is about an order of magnitude higher than the electron mobility in pet. However, we find that for bnpery, the electron and hole transports are balanced, namely, very close in mobility, indicating the possible application in light-emitting field-effect transistor. The crystal packing effects on the frontier orbital coupling are found to be essential to understand such differences in transport behaviors. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.