Green electronics is an emerging field of research which aims to manufacture devices in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. Usually, the involved electronic materials are naturally occurring and non-toxic. Also, they can be processed using simple, low energy deposition processes and fabrication techniques. In this work, we present low voltage organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) using almond gum (AG) as the gate dielectric. AG is a natural, biodegradable insulator material that can be directly collected from almond trees and used without any further purification. Moreover, AG possesses interesting properties such as water solubility, ease of processing, good insulation, low leakage current, good film quality, and high capacitance making it a promising dielectric for OFET devices. Bottom gate/bottom contact pchannel OFETs have been processed on glass substrates with poly(3,6-di(2-thien-5-yl)-2,5-polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) blend as the active layer and gold as the source and drain electrodes. The transistors operate at low voltage (VGS ≤ 3 V), with threshold voltages Vth as low as -0.8 V, saturated field effect mobilities μsat above 0.75 cm 2 .V -1 .s -1 , subthreshold swings SS around 270 mV/dec and ON/OFF current ratio equal to 10 3 . The combined favourable properties of both almond gum and low voltage operated OFET devices have a high potential to pave a way towards using naturally occurring, biodegradable electronic materials in future disposable sensors or throwaway, low-end electronics.
Low-voltage, solution-processed organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) have tremendous potential to be key components in low-cost, flexible and large-area electronics. However, for these devices to operate at low voltage, robust and high capacitance gate dielectrics are urgently needed. Herein, the fabrication of OTFTs that operate at 1 V is reported. These devices comprise a solution-processed, self-assembled monolayer (SAM) modified tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) as the gate dielectric. The morphology and dielectric properties of the anodized Ta2O5 films with and without n-octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) SAM treatment have been studied. The thickness of the Ta2O5 film was optimized by varying the anodization voltage. The results show that organic TFTs gated with OTS-modified tantalum pentoxide anodized at 3 V (d ~7 nm) exhibit the best performance. The devices operate at 1 V with a saturation field-effect mobility larger than 0.2 cm2 V−1 s−1, threshold voltage −0.55 V, subthreshold swing 120 mV/dec, and current on/off ratio in excess of 5 × 103. As a result, the demonstrated OTFTs display a promising performance for applications in low-voltage, portable electronics.
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