Low-temperature, solution-processed organic transistors for flexible electronics

摘要

The materials properties of conjugated small molecule and polymer semiconductors have specific characteristics that make them suitable for applications that cannot easily be addressed by many inorganic materials. Organic semiconductors are inherently low-temperature materials. Due to the absence of covalent bonding between molecules they can be processed at temperatures below typically 100–150 C from either vapour phase or solution into high quality thin films that exhibit a low density of electronic defects. This makes them suitable for applications with a limited temperature window during manufacturing, such as applications that require a flexible plastic substrate, or applications that require integration with other low-temperature materials such as biological molecules. Solution-processible organic semiconductors are compatible with direct-write printing-based manufacturing techniques that have become of interest in order to achieve cost-reductions in large-area electronic applications, such as flat panel displays, and enable new manufacturing paradigms such as roll-to-roll printing, for example for organic solar cells.