Chemical doping of unsubstituted perylene diimide to create radical anions with enhanced stability and tunable photothermal conversion efficiency

• Published in: Frontiers in chemistry Vol. 11; p. 1187378
• Main Authors: Che, Canyan, Tong, Shaohua, Jia, Yanhua, Yang, Jiaji, He, Xiandong, Han, Shaobo, Jiang, Qinglin, Ma, Yuguang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 25.04.2023
• Subjects: Chemistry; controllable doping; perylene diimide; photothermal conversion; radical anion; stability; radical anion; photothermal conversion; controllable doping; stability; perylene diimide
• ISSN: 2296-2646; 2296-2646
• DOI: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1187378

N-doping of perylene diimides (PDIs) to create stable radical anions is significant for harvesting photothermal energy due to their intensive absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) region and non-fluorescence. In this work, a facile and straightforward method has been developed to control the doping of perylene diimide to create radical anions using organic polymer polyethyleneimine (PEI) as a dopant. It was demonstrated that PEI is an effective polymer-reducing agent for the n-doping of PDI toward the controllable generation of radical anions. In addition to the doping process, PEI could suppress the self-assembly aggregation and improve the stability of PDI radical anions. Tunable NIR photothermal conversion efficiency (maximum 47.9%) was also obtained from the radical-anion-rich PDI-PEI composites. This research provides a new strategy to tune the doping level of unsubstituted semiconductor molecules for varying yields of radical anions, suppressing aggregation, improving stability, and obtaining the highest radical anion-based performance.