Organic electronic materials have been considered for a wide-range of technological applications. More recently these organic (semi)conductors (encompassing both conducting and semi-conducting organic electronic materials) have received increasing attention as materials for bioelectronic applications. Biological tissues typically comprise soft, elastic, carbon-based macromolecules and polymers, and communication in these biological systems is usually mediated via mixed electronic and ionic conduction. In contrast to hard inorganic semiconductors, whose primary charge carriers are electrons and holes, organic (semi)conductors uniquely match the mechanical and conduction properties of biotic tissue. Here, we review the biocompatibility of organic electronic materials and their implementation in bioelectronic applications.

Organic solar cells have the potential to become a low-cost sustainable energy source. Understanding the photoconversion mechanism is key to the design of efficient organic solar cells. In this review, we discuss the processes involved in the photo-electron conversion mechanism, which may be subdivided into exciton harvesting, exciton transport, exciton dissociation, charge transport and extraction stages. In particular, we focus on the role of energy transfer as described by F¨orster resonance energy transfer (FRET) theory in the photoconversion mechanism. FRET plays a major role in exciton transport, harvesting and dissociation. The spectral absorption range of organic solar cells may be extended using sensitizers that efficiently transfer absorbed energy to the photoactive materials. The limitations of F¨orster theory to accurately calculate energy transfer rates are discussed. Energy transfer is the first step of an efficient two-step exciton dissociation process and may also be used to preferentially transport excitons to the heterointerface, where efficient exciton dissociation may occur. However, FRET also competes with charge transfer at the heterointerface turning it in a potential loss mechanism. An energy cascade comprising both energy transfer and charge transfer may aid in separating charges and is briefly discussed. Considering the extent to which the photo-electron conversion efficiency is governed by energy transfer, optimisation of this process offers the prospect of improved organic photovoltaic performance and thus aids in realising the potential of organic solar cells.

Due to their easy availability, low cost and opportunities for exploiting reactions of bromo substituents, 1,3,6,8-tetrabromopyrene has attracted major attention in the organic electronics community for designing and constructing novel classes of pyrene based organic semiconducting functional materials. In the present work, 1,3,6,8-tetrabromo pyrene was transformed into the corresponding tetrasubstituted carbazole and phenothiazine derivatives using the classical Suzuki coupling reaction. These newly synthesized materials with a carbazole substituent (PY-CA) and a phenothiazine substituent (PY-PH) were characterised thoroughly and were successfully used as an active light-emitting layer in organic light emitting diodes which resulted in blue and green emission with promising device performance. PY-CA exhibited the maximum brightness at around 2500 cd m⁻² and the power efficiency of 1.5 lm W⁻¹ while that of PY-PH exhibited 2116 cd m⁻² and 0.45 lm W⁻¹ respectively.

In this study, two newly developed small molecules based on 9,9-bis(4-diphenylaminophenyl)fluorene functionalized with triphenylamine moieties, namely TPA-2,7-FLTPA-TPA and TPA-3,6-FLTPA-TPA, are designed, synthesized and characterized. The electrochemical, optical and thermal properties of both materials are investigated using various techniques. Afterwards, these materials are employed as dopant-free hole transporting materials (HTMs) in planar inverted perovskite solar cell devices with the aim of determining the device performance and studying their stability in comparison with reference N⁴,N⁴,N⁴′′,N⁴′′-tetra([1,10-biphenyl]-4-yl)-[1,1′:4′,1′′-terphenyl]-4,4′′-diamine (TaTm)-based devices. Under 1 sun conditions, TPA-3,6-FLTPA-TPA-based devices achieve a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.9% whereas TPA-2,7-FLTPA-TPA-based devices exhibit the highest PCE of 17.1% mainly due to an improvement in the fill factor (FF). Meanwhile, the devices prepared using TaTm as the reference HTM exhibit an overall efficiency of 15.9%. In addition to the higher efficiency, our newly developed HTM TPA-2,7-FLTPA-TPA-based devices demonstrate good stability which is comparable to those with TaTm under similar aging test conditions.