Probing Ultrastrong Through‐Space Electronic Coupling in Donor‐Acceptor Systems at the Single‐Molecule Level
Through-space donor-acceptor (TSDA) interactions have recently emerged as a new paradigm for charge transfer and transport in organic semiconductors. However, the intrinsic D-A coupling strength and charge transport properties at the molecular level remain unexplored in comparison to established through-bond channels. Here, we employ a variety of single-molecule techniques to directly probe TSDA charge transport characteristics in a series of strategically designed face-to-face D-A systems, revealing that optimized spatial proximity and electronic complementarity yield conductance values up to ∼0.19 G<sub>0</sub>, comparable to the best-performing through-bond molecular wires. Flicker noise analysis, current-voltage characterization, and mechanical stretching measurements confirm robust electronic and mechanical coupling, while theoretical calculations and photophysical studies identify through-space transmission as the prevailing mechanism. These findings establish non-covalent TSDA coupling as an efficient charge-transport channel and provide new molecular-level insight for the design of D-A systems in organic electronics and optoelectronics.
Authors
- J. Ulstrup
- Jiazheng Diao
- Florian Auras (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1709-4384)
- J. Joshua Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8242-7531)
- Yueqi Li
- Chengyang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6361-717X)
- Jinghong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0750-7352)
- Linsong Cui
- Xin Wang
- Dan Yang
- Qiang Fu
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Bioanalytica (Switzerland) (CH)
- Hefei National Center for Physical Sciences at Nanoscale (CN)
- Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden – University of Applied Sciences (DE)
- Technische Universität Dresden (DE)
- Technical University of Denmark (DK)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Science
- Published
- 2026-01-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202521879
- Primary Topic
- Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- University of Science and Technology of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China