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. 2021 Aug 14;9(4):nwab145.
doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwab145. eCollection 2022 Apr.

A nonchlorinated solvent-processed polymer semiconductor for high-performance ambipolar transistors

Jie Yang  1 , Yaqian Jiang  1 , Zhiyuan Zhao  1 , Xueli Yang  1 , Zheye Zhang  2 , Jinyang Chen  1 , Junyu Li  1 , Wei Shi  1 , Shuai Wang  2 , Yunlong Guo  1 , Yunqi Liu  1
Affiliations

A nonchlorinated solvent-processed polymer semiconductor for high-performance ambipolar transistors

Jie Yang et al. Natl Sci Rev. .

Abstract

Ambipolar polymer semiconductors are potentially serviceable for logic circuits, light-emitting field-effect transistors (LFETs) and polymer solar cells (PSCs). Although several high-performance ambipolar polymers have been developed, their optoelectronic devices are generally processed from toxic chlorinated solvents. To achieve the commercial applications of organic FETs (OFETs), the polymers should be processed from nonchlorinated solvents, instead of chlorinated solvents. However, most conjugated polymers show poor solubility in nonchlorinated solvents. It is of great importance to develop ambipolar polymers that can be processed from nonchlorinated solvents. Here, we develop a nonchlorinated solvent processed polymer named poly[7-fluoro-N, N'-di(4-decyltetradecyl)-7'-azaisoindigo-6',6″-(thieno[3,2-b]thiophene-2,5-diyl)-7‴-fluoro-N″, N‴-di(4-decyltetradecyl)-7″-azaisoindigo-6,6‴-([2,2″-bithiophene]-5,5″-diyl)] (PITTI-BT) by designing a monomer with a large molar mass. The polymer displays good solubility in p-xylene (PX). Well-aligned films of PITTI-BT are achieved by an off-center spin-coating (SC) method. Based on the high-quality films, the OFETs fabricated from PX solution achieve record ambipolar performance with hole and electron mobilities of 3.06 and 2.81 cm2 V-1 s-1, respectively. The combination of nonchlorinated solvents and good alignment process offers an effective and eco-friendly approach to obtain high-performance ambipolar transistors.

Keywords: alignment; ambipolar transistor; high performance; nonchlorinated solvent.

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Figures

Scheme 1.
Scheme 1.
The route to PITTI-BT.
Figure 1.
Figure 1.
(a) Molecular structure of PITTI-BT. (b) Photograph of PITTI-BT film. (c) PX solution of PITTI-BT. (d, e) Schematic of polarized UV-vis tests of the off-center spin-coated films. The light polarization direction is (d) parallel or (e) perpendicular to the film aligned direction. The same film areas were selected for tests. Polarized UV-vis absorption spectra of the on-center or off-center spin-coated films prepared from (f) PX or (g) ODCB solution.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
AFM height images of the annealed polymer films prepared by (a, d) on-center and (b, c, e, f) off-center SC methods from (a–c) PX or (d–f) ODCB solutions.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
2D-GIWAXS of polymer films prepared from PX solution by (a) on-center SC, (b) off-center SC (parallel) and (c) off-center SC (perpendicular) methods. 2D-GIWAXS of polymer films prepared from ODCB solution by (d) on-center SC, (e) off-center SC (parallel) and (f) off-center SC (perpendicular) methods. (g) Schematic of molecular packing of on-center SC films. Schematics of film molecular packing are shown with the incident in-plane X-rays (h) parallel or (i) perpendicular to the film aligned direction.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Transfer and output characteristics of OFETs prepared by (a–d) on-center and (e–l) off-center SC methods from PX solution. The transistor channels are (e–h) parallel or (i–l) perpendicular to the film aligned direction.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
(a) The maximum mobility distribution of OFETs fabricated by on-center and off-center SC methods from PX solution. (b) Plot of μe versus μh for ambipolar or n-type OFETs fabricated from nonchlorinated solvents. Source references for the data points are provided in Supplementary Table S1.
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