Multiscale Simulations on Charge Transport in Covalent Organic Frameworks Including Dynamics of Transfer Integrals from the FMO-DFTB/LCMO Approach

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are potential candidates for applications in optoelectronic devices and solar cells due to their ability to transport charge through their aromatic molecular units. The highly ordered π-conjugated TP-COF, consisting of pyrene and triphenylene functional units alternately linked in a mesoporous hexagonal skeleton, is known as the first semiconducting COF. In this paper, we investigate the transport of holes as charge carriers in TP-COF through the π-stacked pyrene units with a multiscale technique, which combines classical molecular dynamics simulations, quantum chemical calculations, and carrier dynamics simulations. To efficiently estimate the charge transfer integrals from quantum chemical calculations, we developed the FMO-DFTB/LCMO approach by combining the fragment molecular orbital (FMO), density-functional tight-binding (DFTB), and linear-combination of fragment molecular orbitals (LCMO) methods. We observed that the thermal motions of TP-COF cause substantial fluctuations of the transfer integrals. To evaluate the charge carrier diffusion, we performed Ehrenfest dynamics and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, including the fluctuations of the transfer integrals. Using both simulation approaches, we obtained high carrier mobilities of ca. 2 cm² V^-1 s^-1. We found that the characteristics of charge transport in COFs are similar to that of oligoacene crystals, suggesting a common mechanism associated with "band-like" transport.