Development of Acceptor-Integrated Crystalline Organic Materials

We report the first example of fullerene-containing porous covalent-organic scaffold, which combines not only crystallinity and porosity, but also integrates the intrinsic properties of a redox-active buckyball, along with the ability to tune electronic properties. Thus, the presented studies not only demonstrate the possibility of merging the strong electron accepting properties of fullerene-based derivatives with the versatility of covalent-organic frameworks (COFs), but also begin the class of crystalline, entirely organic, donor-acceptor fullerene COFs through covalently modifying the channel walls. These studies could foreshadow new avenues for buckyball utilization for applications ranging from organic photovoltaics to molecular electronics.