From polymer transistors toward printed electronics

Abstract

Printed organic circuits have the potential to revolutionize the spread of electronic applications. This will be enabled by inexpensive and fast fabrication with printing techniques using soluble organic materials. Two main challenges have to be mastered on the way towards printed electronics. First, the development of stable transistors and an adapted chip design for organic materials, and second, the development of a reliable fabrication process. We present our results on high performance polymer transistors, mainly based on poly-3alkylthiophene (P3AT) as semiconducting material. Fast circuits up to 200 kHz and stable circuits with operation lifetimes of more than 1000 h under ambient conditions without any encapsulation are shown. We also report on a fully printed, all organic ring oscillator.

Molecular-weight dependence of interchain polaron delocalization and exciton bandwidth in high-mobility conjugated polymers

“…On the other hand a better physical understanding of interchain interaction effects in polymers is essential as these materials are becoming an attractive class of materials for realizing field-effect transistor ͑FET͒ circuits on low-cost flexible substrates by solution processing and direct-write printing techniques. [2][3][4] Much progress has been made recently on their device performance, in particular with regard to increases in performance and operational lifetime, as well as scientific understanding of the device physics of these materials. 5 Interchain interactions affect performance parameters, such as the field-effect mobility, critically, as they can lead, for example, to a limited interchain delocalization of the polaronic charge carriers.…”

Understanding and controlling the weakly interacting interface inperylene∕Ag(110)

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6] While organic multilayer is practically applied in organic electronics and optoelectronics, the organic/metal interfaces play a crucial role in the performance of the molecular devices. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Selfassembly is one of the few practical "bottom-up" methods to prepare organic nanostructures. Previous work on molecular self-assembly shows that the molecular adsorption configurations are strongly affected by the surface structure of the substrate and the balance between intermolecular interaction and molecule-substrate interaction.…”

Layer-by-Layer Assembly of Nanowires for Three-Dimensional, Multifunctional Electronics

“…Second, frequency-dependent measurements 24 (Figure 4d) demonstrate that the gain is greater than unity and phase inversion is achieved when the devices are driven by up to a 50 MHz sine wave supply of 4 V. This is the highest reported operation frequency for a circuit made of any channel material on flexible substrates, outperforming amorphous Si and organic electronics by over 2 orders of magnitude. 32,33 The NW inverter structure can be further improved in the future to obtain higher frequencies by using shorter channel lengths and incorporating thinner gate dielectrics. Third, current vs voltage sweeps recorded on the memory elements (Figure 4e) exhibit large and reproducible hysteresis loops consisting of storage and removal of charge from a floating gate element.…”