Spontaneously formed high-performance charge-transport layers of organic single-crystal semiconductors on precisely synthesized insulating polymers

• Published in: Applied physics letters 2017-04, Vol.110 (16)
• Main Authors: Makita, Tatsuyuki, Sasaki, Masayuki, Annaka, Tatsuro, Sasaki, Mari, Matsui, Hiroyuki, Mitsui, Chikahiko, Kumagai, Shohei, Watanabe, Shun, Hayakawa, Teruaki, Okamoto, Toshihiro, Takeya, Jun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0003-6951; 1077-3118
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4981774

Charge-transporting semiconductor layers with high carrier mobility and low trap-density, desired for high-performance organic transistors, are spontaneously formed as a result of thermodynamic phase separation from a blend of π-conjugated small molecules and precisely synthesized insulating polymers dissolved in an aromatic solvent. A crystal film grows continuously to the size of centimeters, with the critical conditions of temperature, concentrations, and atmosphere. It turns out that the molecular weight of the insulating polymers plays an essential role in stable film growth and interfacial homogeneity at the phase separation boundary. Fabricating the transistor devices directly at the semiconductor-insulator boundaries, we demonstrate that the mixture of 3,11-didecyldinaphtho[2,3-d:2′,3′-d′]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene and poly(methyl methacrylate) with the optimized weight-average molecular weight shows excellent device performances. The spontaneous phase separation with a one-step fabrication process leads to a high mobility up to 10 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a low subthreshold swing of 0.25 V dec−1 even without any surface treatment such as self-assembled monolayer modifications on oxide gate insulators.