MANA International Symposium 2026

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Poster NM-09

Designing High-Performance Liquid Electrets
through Molecular π-Architecture

Indrajit Giri

Author

Indrajit Giri1, Ravindra Kumar Gupta1, Masato Sumita2, Takashi Nakanishi*1

Affiliation

1Frontier Molecules Group, MANA, NIMS
2RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, University of Tsukuba

URL

https://www.nims.go.jp/funct_mol_g/en/index.html

Biography

Indrajit Giri received his Ph.D. in Chemistry (2024) from IISER Kolkata, India. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan. His research focuses on the molecular design of high-performance π-liquid electrets for stretchable vibration-sensing applications.

Abstract

Toward the construction of a future smart society, the development of lightweight, stretchable, and battery-free sensors is gaining momentum. Conventional solid1 or polymer2 electrets have had limited applicability in stretchable electronic devices due to their rigid nature. In contrast, alkyl–π liquids, composed of π-conjugated molecules surrounded by branched alkyl chains,3 can be converted into electrets via corona charging and have emerged as a unique class of “liquid electrets” for stretchable electronic applications. Although π-liquid electrets possess high potential, the understanding of the molecular design guidelines governing their charge-storage performance remains limited.4 Here, using a library of 27 π-liquids, we systematically correlated experimentally measured charge-storage characteristics with DFT-derived molecular descriptors to elucidate the relationship between π-conjugated structure and charge-storage capability (Fig. 1). Among the investigated descriptors, isotropic polarizability (αiso) and vertical ionization potential (VIP) were identified as the dominant parameters governing charge-storage performance. Guided by the structure–property relationships, we rationally designed and synthesized 8 additional alkyl–π liquids. The experimentally measured charge-storage properties showed good agreement with the predicted trends, thereby demonstrating the validity of the proposed molecular design framework.

Alkyl-π liquid structure and charge-amount correlations
Fig. 1. (a) One of the studied alkyl-π liquid chemical structures and photograph at ambient condition. Correlations of (b) molar charge amount with αiso and (c) volumetric charge amount with VIP. Black and red markers represent the charge amounts after positive and negative corona discharge on alkyl–π liquids, respectively. The star marks shown in the graphs of (b) and (c) represent the charge amount accumulated on the alkyl-π liquid shown in (a).

References

  1. N. Wada, K. Mukougawa, N. Horiuchi, T. Hiyama, M. Nakamura, A. Nagai, T. Okura, K. Yamashita, Mater. Res.
  2. Bull. 48, 3854–3859 (2013), 10.1016/j.materresbull.2013.05.105.
  3. Y. Zhang, J. Zhang, K. Suzuki, M. Sumita, K. Terayama, J. Li, Z. Mao, K. Tsuda, Y. Suzuki, Appl. Phys. Lett. 118,
  4. 223904 (2021), 10.1063/5.0051902.
  5. A. Ghosh, M. Yoshida, K. Suemori, H. Isago, N. Kobayashi, Y. Mizutani, Y. Kurashige, I. Kawamura, M. Nirei, O.
  6. Yamamuro, T. Takaya, K. Iwata, A. Saeki, K. Nagura, S. Ishihara, T. Nakanishi, Nat. Commun. 10, 4210 (2019),
  7. 10.1038/s41467-019-12249-8.
  8. K. Terayama, S. Ishida, S. Mete, K. Suga, R. Tamura, S. Saito, T. Nakanishi, M. Naito, K. Tsuda, M. Sumita, npj
  9. Comput. Mater. (2026), in press, 10.1038/s41524-026-02246-z.
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