Investigation of self-assembly and charge-transport property of one-dimensional PDI ₈ -CN ₂ nanowires by solvent-vapor annealing

One-dimensional (1D) nanowires have attracted great interest, while air-stable n-type 1D nanowires still remain scarce. Herein, we present solvent-vapor annealing (SVA) made nanowires based on perylene tetracarboxylic diimide (PDI) derivative. It was found that the spin-coated thin films reorganized into nanowires distributed all over the substrate, as a result of the following solvent-vapor annealing effect. Cooperating with the atomic force microscopy and fluorescence microscopy characterization, the PDI ₈ -CN ₂ molecules were supposed to conduct a long-range and entire transport to form the 1D nanowires through the SVA process, which may guarantee its potential morphology tailoring ability. In addition, the nanowire-based transistors displayed air stable electron mobility reaching to 0.15 cm ² V ^-1 s ^-1 , attributing to effective in situ reassembly. Owing to the broader application of organic small-molecule nanowires, this work opens up an attractive approach for exploring new high-performance micro- and nanoelectronics.