The development of ambient stable organic n-channel semiconductor molecules for thin-film transistors has experienced a tremendous impetus in the last decade to close the gap in performance in comparison to that of their p-channel counterparts. Especially naphthalene and perylene tetracarboxylic diimides (NDI and PDI) have shown to be the most valuable building blocks to achieve this challenging goal and to gain insight into the molecular structure-transistor performance relationship. Remaining challenges and new emerging research fields for these n-type semiconductors are the optimization of their deposition on flexible substrates, the control of their long term ambient stability and their implementation in complementary transistor circuits, display and sensor devices.
© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2011