Symposium X—MRS/The Kavli Foundation Frontiers of Materials

Xinliang Feng
Technische Universität Dresden

Advances in Organic 2D Crystals—From On-Water Surface Chemistry to Functional Applications

In contrast to the tremendous efforts dedicated to the exploration of graphene and inorganic 2D crystals such as metal dichalcogenides, boron nitride, black phosphorus, metal oxides, and nitrides, there has been much less development in organic 2D crystalline materials, including the bottom-up organic/polymer synthesis of graphene nanoribbons, 2D metal-organic frameworks, 2D polymers/supramolecular polymers, as well as the supramolecular approach to 2D organic nanostructures. One of the central chemical challenges is to realize a controlled polymerization in two distinct dimensions under thermodynamic/kinetic control in solution and at the surface/interface. In this talk, we will present our recent efforts in bottom-up synthetic approaches toward novel organic 2D crystals with structural control at the atomic/molecular level. On-water surface synthesis provides a powerful synthetic platform by exploiting surface confinement and enhanced chemical reactivity and selectivity. We will particularly present a surfactant-monolayer assisted interfacial synthesis (SMAIS) method that is highly efficient to promote programmable assembly of precursor monomers on the water surface and subsequent 2D polymerization in a controlled manner. 2D conjugated polymers and coordination polymers belong to such materials classes. The unique 2D crystal structures with possible tailoring of conjugated building blocks and conjugation lengths, tunable pore sizes and thicknesses, as well as impressive electronic structures, make them highly promising for a range of applications in electronics, optoelectronics and spintronics. Other physicochemical phenomenon and application potential of organic 2D crystals, such as in membranes, will also be discussed.

Virtual Meeting Platform

Professor Xinliang Feng is the head of the Chair of Molecular Functional Materials at Technische Universität Dresden, and a director at the Max-Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics. He has published more than 690 research articles which have attracted around 91,000 citations with an H-index of 148 (Google Scholar).