Boosting spontaneous orientation polarization of polar molecules based on fluoroalkyl and phthalimide units

Polar organic molecules form spontaneous polarization in vacuum-deposited films by permanent dipole orientations in the films, originating from the molecule’s potential ability to align itself on the film surface during deposition. This study focuses on developing polar molecules that exhibit spontaneous orientation polarization (SOP) and possess a high surface potential. In the proposed molecular design, a hexafluoropropane (6F) unit facilitates spontaneous molecular orientation to align the permanent dipoles, and a phthalimide unit induces strong molecular polarization. Furthermore, the introduction of phthalimides into the molecular backbone raises the glass transition temperature of the molecules, leading to the suppression of molecular mobility on the film surface during film deposition and an improvement in the dipole orientation. The resulting surface potential slope is approximately 280 mV nm−1 without substrate temperature control. Furthermore, this work proposes a method using position isomers as a design strategy to tune the SOP polarity. The substitution position of the strong polar units influences the direction of the total molecular dipoles and affects the SOP polarity of the 6F-based molecules. The proposed molecular designs in this study provide wide tunability of the SOP intensity and polarity, which contributes to highly efficient organic optoelectronic and energy-harvesting devices.