Themed collection 2022 Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship runners-up: Jessica Wade and Luisa Whittaker-Brooks

This perspective explores the dissymmetric interaction between circularly polarised (CP) light and chiral molecules. Such interactions are central to many applications from next generation displays to asymmetric photochemical synthesis.

Self-doping is an essential method of increasing carrier concentrations in organic electronics that eliminates the need to tailor host—dopant miscibility, a necessary step when employing molecular dopants.

Here we provide a framework of standardised apparatus and tests which enable rigorous characterisation of the performance of photodetectors sensitive to circular polarisation, enabling meaningful comparisons between devices reported in literature.

As research on both bulk and low dimensional metal halide perovskites (MHPs) continues to grow, the tools necessary to gain insights into their exotic and highly convoluted optoelectronic features must also expand.

We study the influence of the physical and chemical structure on the chiroptical response of fluorene-based polymeric systems and reveal the significance of electric-magnetic coupling, at both short and intermediate length scales on the magnitude of the dissymmetry.

A mix-and-match sol–gel deposition method allows fabrication of one-dimensional photonic bandgap materials with strategically placed porous layers.

We describe a spectroelectrochemical approach to accelerated electrochemical stability studies of conjugated polymers under oxidative stress. The polaron stabilities of alternating copolymers based on (i) thiophene and thiazole, namely PTTz, and (ii) bithiophene and thiazole, namely PTTTz, are compared in neat films with that of P3HT. P3HT is found to be the most stable whilst PTTz is found to be the least stable.

The out-of-plane hole mobility in copper phthalocyanine is enhanced by face-on molecular stacking induced by graphene-templated growth.

The nucleation and growth mechanisms of Li deposits on Si and Cu substrates in commercial carbonate electrolyte are detailly presented, which indicates how various design parameters regulate Li deposit morphology and affect battery performance.

The noble electrochemical doping agent enables stable electrochemical doping of achiral π-CP in π-CP:aza[6]H blends, which allows better charge injection and balance for efficient circularly polarized optoelectronic devices.

We demonstrate CP-OLEDs with an impressive electroluminescence dissymmetry factor (g_EL) > 0.3. The handedness of circularly polarized PL/EL can be inverted by varying the active layer thickness and chiral additive loading ratio.

Naphthalene diimide based diammonium cations can be utilized to produce 1D organic/inorganic metal halide semiconductors with internal charge separation via charge transfer states that lie energetically below the metal-halide excitonic absorption.

We provide fundamental design principles on the effect of dopant structure (steric hindrance) on the doping efficiency in highly oriented self-doped organic semiconducting thin films.

We determined how morphology, electronic and interfacial interactions affect perovskite PVs under voltage bias stress. Our findings provide insights into the discrepancies in the solar cell efficiencies observed across many different research groups.

Using the mosaicity factor and GIWAXS diffraction patterns to quantify crystallite heterogeneities and orientation in thin film materials.

Vertically-oriented TiS₂ nanobelt arrays allow for the fabrication of carbon- and binder- free electrodes with high ion diffusion lengths.

Understanding the effects of heteroatom substitutions in donor–acceptor copolymers on their electronic structure, conformation, molecular packing, and optoelectronic device performance.

The photostability of diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based copolymers is examined by investigating the natures of the two dominant optical absorption transitions.

We report the assembly of Bi₂S₃ into percolated networks.

Zone casting at controlled substrate displacement rates forms highly aligned crystalline domains of functionalized pentacenes, which allows us to investigate charge-transport anisotropy due to molecular packing and microstructure.

In situ Raman spectroscopy can probe degradation-induced molecular changes within thin film organic solar cells, revealing that the polymer PTB7 degrades via a 2-step photo-oxidation process localized on the benzodithiophene unit.

An intermediate metallic phase of VO₂ has been observed in differential tunnelling conductance spectra and images obtained during the MIT with STS.