Metallo-organic Conjugated Systems for Organic Electronics

Polymer/organic optoelectronic devices have been the center of attention for the last two decades for both the academic and industrial research communities, due to their potential as a a low-cost, large-area, solution-processable technology alternative to their conventional, inorganic counterparts. There are several issues, such as the lower efficiencies, lower stabilities, and higher resistances of organic/polymer-based optoelectronic devices. To address these obstacles, significant research activity has been devoted to pi-conjugated organics. One of the approaches includes the incorporation of metal complexes in the main conjugation or as a pendant substitution on that. Metallo-organic compounds with transition row elements have been extensively studied in organic electronics due to the easy tunability of their electronic properties, amenable redox matching, and the extended life-time of the triplet state. This has successfully resulted in some high performance electronic devices containing metallo-organic pi-conjugated small molecules and polymers. Herein, we review the recent advances made in metallo-organic materials (small molecules and polymers) for organic electronics.