ABSTRACT
Figure 11.1 Selected acene derivatives with applications in electronic devices. While the application of acene derivative flourished, their synthetic accessibility only improved marginally. Although thousands of pentacene related publications have appeared since 1990, most of these investigations deal only with the parent pentacene. Among the pentacene derivatives, the majority are synthesized from pentacene quinones by direct reduction or reductive alkynylation (pioneered by Prof. J. E. Anthony).5 Even for simpler anthracene or naphthalene skeletons, the syntheses of multiple substituted derivatives can still pose formidable challenges. If these compounds become more accessible, they could provide solutions to many problems in materials science. On the other hand, new compounds might exhibit unexpected properties that force us to re-evaluate the accepted paradigm and revise current models.
