Themed collection Celebrating ten years of Journal of Materials Chemistry C

Past and present Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board Chairs introduce the 10th anniversary issues of Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C, reflecting on the rich history of the journals and looking ahead to the exciting future of materials chemistry.

This perspective discusses the recent progress and efforts on the interface engineering of water-resistant perovskite nanocrystals as fluorescent probes for biological diagnosis.

This paper highlights the use of conjugated organic materials to construct sensors for the detection of biogenic amines released from decomposing food stuffs.

Stimuli-responsive chromic materials have received increasing research attention. This review summarizes the most cutting-edge carbon-centered radicals, with a focus on their structures, properties and applications as stimuli-chromic materials.

Tremendous efforts have been devoted to wearable mechanical sensors to meet growing needs in healthcare sensors and electronic skins.

Traditionally, hot excitons or hot carriers generated in semiconductors were considered unfavourable for many applications, given that they may cause energy loss and device degradation.

This review highlights the most relevant works on phthalocyanines, porphyrins and other porphyrinoids as components of perovskite solar cells from the last four years acting as hole transporting materials, additives, and interlayers.

Preserve the shape of silver nanocrystals by decorating a shell or frame composed of a more corrosive resistant metal on their surfaces for applications in plasmonics, catalysis, and electronics.

We discuss the synthesis of infrared-emitting conjugated polymer nanoparticles and their use in biological imaging. The image shows the vasculature of a mouse brain imaged with conjugated polymer nanoparticles (M. Liu et al., Angew. Chem., Int. Ed., 2021, 60, 983–989).

A record-high visible-to-ultraviolet (UV) upconversion efficiency of 27.6% for films is achieved by a simple method using porous film. Subsolar visible light is successfully converted to UV light by integrating the film with a microlens array.

Interlayer interactions are proved to be essential in determining the accurate active site of metal–benzenehexathiol (M–BHT) for hydrogen evolution and Mo–BHT is predicted to be a new promising member of the family of highly active M–BHT catalysts.

OECTs capable of undergoing a reversible modulation of ON current by up to 30% via irradiation with UV and visible light were realised via blending of a mixed ionic–electronic polymer (pgBTTT) and a photoswitching spiropyran derivative (OEG-SP).

A miniature, multifunctional hybrid organic directional coupler (HDC), constructed from two different flexible organic crystals, splits the optical signal and delivers input-dependent optical outputs.

Morphological diversity, phase separated to highly intermixed, is induced in low miscibility blends via solution vitrification through control of liquid state chain entanglements, enabling establishment of relevant structure/property relations and a diverse property set.

An extensive experimental study of a family of chiral aggregates of proline derived squaraines is presented and discussed with reference to two theoretical models and to MD simulations to shed light on the chiroptical properties of these systems.

Response time and plasticity of P3HT-IGTs can be controlled by engineering input stimuli. IGTs can be employed as neuromorphic devices integrating memory (LTP) and processing functions (STP) in the same device, as a function of biasing conditions.

Two newly developed carboynyl-based multi-resonant TADF show bright green-yellow emission. These were used as emitters in both OLEDs, and LECs.

This study investigated the crystallization and electrical properties of atomic layer deposited Zn–Sn–O (ZTO) thin films. Sn 42 at% ZTO thin film showed the best thermal stability and electrical properties due to a change in the sub-gap states.

We present the synthesis, optoelectronic characterization, and a detailed theoretical study of DMAC-py-TRZ, a novel, efficient TADF emitter.

Varied-length conjugated polyelectrolytes (2–5 methylene units) containing CPDT-alt-BT were synthesized to study the optical, electrochemical, and morphological properties. These were used in accumulation mode organic electrochemical transistors.

Four symmetrically substituted and four asymmetrically substituted fluorinated and non-fluorinated-diarylamine CuPcs and ZnPcs have been designed and utilized as hole transporting materials in perovskite solar cells.

This study uses a laser patterning setup to write defect structures into a conjugated polymer microcavity. We show that the defect enhances optical confinement and reduces the lasing threshold.

Asymmetric truxene-based hole-transport material shows stable amorphous film and good efficiency in perovskite solar cell.

A tailored design of asymmetric hole-transporting materials (HTMs) is reported with the synthesis of a family of new HTMs based on the use of the 5H-dithieno[3,2-b:2′,3′-d]pyran (DTP) moiety endowed with donor p-methoxytriphenylamines.

In this work, we verified that light induces a dynamic equilibrium between ligands and the inorganic surface in amine-free perovskite nanocrystals, and we demonstrated that oleylphosphate ligands can improve the photostability of cesium lead bromide perovskite nanocrystals.

We present two HLCT blue emitters by grafting anthracene in the D–A segment. The blue OLEDs exhibit a good performance with an EQE_max up to 5.53%. It is revealed that hRISC from T₂ to S₁ serves as an efficient approach to harvest the triplet exciton.

We explored nitrofluorene derivatives as tunable electron-withdrawing groups for acceptor–donor–acceptor (A–D–A) type non-fullerene acceptors.

Exposure to oxygen and light leads to a remarkable performance improvement in the case of highly-defective metal halide perovskite solar cells.

Addition of a fullerene derivative to a PBTATBT-4F:Y6 blend significantly enhances cell stability, which retained 90% of the initial PCEs (13–14%) even after storage in air for 6 months, compared to only 20% retention for the binary device.

A novel star-shape non-fullerene acceptor containing an aza-triangulene core is synthesized, characterized and used in inverted organic solar cells.

We present a model enabling the simulation of doped polymers in the vicinity of water and ions taking into account large electronic rearrangements coupled with slow dynamics.

Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and phototransistors using blends of Ph-BTBT-10 with binding polymers are prepared. We show that tuning the nature of the polymer is a useful tool to optimise the OFET performance and photoresponsivity.

The first nitrite salt of a tetrathiafulvalene derivative exhibits a rare chessboard-like organization of the conducting stacks, with a spin-Peierls transition at 70 K.

Understanding the strategy of fluorination to control π-conjugation and intra and interchain interactions for the rational design of improved semiconducting polymers.

Layered metal-halide perovskites have shown great promise for applications in optoelectronic devices, where a large number of suitable organic cations give the opportunity to tune their structural and optical properties.

The interfaces between a halide perovskite absorber film and its charge transporting layers have been identified as one of the key bottlenecks for achieving high performance and stability.

Flowchart illustrating how the films are deposited (a) without and (b) with cleaning step, and Auger electron spectroscopy depth profile of 15 nm HfN_x deposited with precleaning step, before annealing (c) and after 900 °C annealing at NH₃ atmosphere.

Semitransparent organic solar cells based on sequentially processed heterojunction (SHJ) structure show a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.5% and an average visible transmittance (AVT) of 25.4%, outperforming the BHJ counterpart (PCE = 11.8%, AVT = 22.9%).

The thermal quenching data of 5d emission from Eu²⁺ and Ce³⁺ and 4f emission from Pr³⁺, Eu³⁺, and Tb³⁺ are shown to be consistent with vacuum referred binding energy schemes. The scheme construction parameters of 170 different compounds are provided.

Chemical design of complexes with thermal- and light-induced spin switching and integration as thin films in graphene-based devices by sublimation.

The shape memory effects and photoinduced deformation behaviour of interpenetrating polymer network (IPN) films containing azobenzene liquid-crystalline polymers were investigated.

The interplay between the nanostructure of a doped polythiophene with oligoether side chains and its electrical as well as mechanical properties is investigated.

Cs₂ZnBr₄:Mn²⁺ and its composite film demonstrate good X-ray scintillation performances with a spatial resolution of 5.06 lp mm⁻¹ in X-ray imaging.

A perovskite photodetector with bio-inspired micro area concentrated structures has been fabricated for weak light imaging. The photodetector exhibits high detectivity (1.37 × 10¹³ Jones), and it can achieve weak light imaging under 0.64 μW cm⁻².

A high external quantum efficiency of 12.8% was achieved in the Se based organic emitter based device by substituent engineering on the pure organic room temperature phosphorescent core.

The isomerism effect on the aggregate emission properties of perylene diimide derivatives is studied. Banking on their bright emission, a cellular imaging test based on their nanoparticles is also conducted.