A Fully Edible Transistor Based on a Toothpaste Pigment.

Edible electronics is emerging in recent years motivated by a diverse number of healthcare applications, where sensors can be safely ingested without the need for any medical supervision. However, the current lack of stable and well-performing edible semiconductors needs to be addressed to reach technological maturity and allow the surge of a new generation of edible circuits. In the quest for good-performing edible semiconductors, this study has explored the possibility of considering materials that are not regulated for intentional ingestion, yet are daily swallowed with no adverse reactions, such as pigments contained in toothpaste.

Correction: Chitosan-gated organic transistors printed on ethyl cellulose as a versatile platform for edible electronics and bioelectronics.

Correction for 'Chitosan-gated organic transistors printed on ethyl cellulose as a versatile platform for edible electronics and bioelectronics' by Alina S. Sharova , , 2023, , 10808-10819, https://doi.org/10.

Chitosan-gated organic transistors printed on ethyl cellulose as a versatile platform for edible electronics and bioelectronics.

Edible electronics is an emerging research field targeting electronic devices that can be safely ingested and directly digested or metabolized by the human body. As such, it paves the way to a whole new family of applications, ranging from ingestible medical devices and biosensors to smart labelling for food quality monitoring and anti-counterfeiting. Being a newborn research field, many challenges need to be addressed to realize fully edible electronic components.

Self-Powered Edible Defrosting Sensor.

Improper freezing of food causes food waste and negatively impacts the environment. In this work, we propose a device that can detect defrosting events by coupling a temperature-activated galvanic cell with an ionochromic cell, which is activated by the release of ions during current flow. Both the components of the sensor are fabricated through simple and low-energy-consuming procedures from edible materials.

Microstructural control suppresses thermal activation of electron transport at room temperature in polymer transistors.

Recent demonstrations of inverted thermal activation of charge mobility in polymer field-effect transistors have excited the interest in transport regimes not limited by thermal barriers. However, rationalization of the limiting factors to access such regimes is still lacking. An improved understanding in this area is critical for development of new materials, establishing processing guidelines, and broadening of the range of applications.

Uniaxial Alignment of Conjugated Polymer Films for High-Performance Organic Field-Effect Transistors.

Polymer semiconductors have been experiencing a remarkable improvement in electronic and optoelectronic properties, which are largely related to the recent development of a vast library of high-performance, donor-acceptor copolymers showing alternation of chemical moieties with different electronic affinities along their backbones. Such steady improvement is making conjugated polymers even more appealing for large-area and flexible electronic applications, from distributed and portable electronics to healthcare devices, where cost-effective manufacturing, light weight, and ease of integration represent key benefits. Recently, a strong boost to charge carrier mobility in polymer-based field-effect transistors, consistently achieving the range from 1.

Highly Planarized Naphthalene Diimide-Bifuran Copolymers with Unexpected Charge Transport Performance.

The synthesis, characterization, and charge transport performance of novel copolymers PNDIFu2 made from alternating naphthalene diimide (NDI) and bifuran (Fu2) units are reported. Usage of potentially biomass-derived Fu2 as alternating repeat unit enables flattened polymer backbones due to reduced steric interactions between the imide oxygens and Fu2 units, as seen by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and UV-vis spectroscopy. Aggregation of PNDIFu2 in solution is enhanced if compared to the analogous NDI-bithiophene (T2) copolymers PNDIT2, occurring in all solvents and temperatures probed.

Thermoelectric Properties of Highly Conductive Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Polystyrene Sulfonate Printed Thin Films.

Organic conductors are being evaluated for potential use in waste heat recovery through lightweight and flexible thermoelectric generators manufactured using cost-effective printing processes. Assessment of the potentiality of organic materials in real devices still requires a deeper understanding of the physics behind their thermoelectric properties, which can pave the way toward further development of the field. This article reports a detailed thermoelectric study of a set of highly conducting inkjet-printed films of commercially available poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate formulations characterized by in-plane electrical conductivity, spanning the interval 10-500 S/cm.

Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Halogen-Bonded Block Copolymer Complexes into Upright Cylindrical Domains.

Self-assembly of block copolymers into well-defined, ordered arrangements of chemically distinct domains is a reliable strategy for preparing tailored nanostructures. Microphase separation results from the system, minimizing repulsive interactions between dissimilar blocks and maximizing attractive interactions between similar blocks. Supramolecular methods have also achieved this separation by introducing small-molecule additives binding specifically to one block by noncovalent interactions.

Water-Gated n-Type Organic Field-Effect Transistors for Complementary Integrated Circuits Operating in an Aqueous Environment.

The first demonstration of an n-type water-gated organic field-effect transistor (WGOFET) is here reported, along with simple water-gated complementary integrated circuits, in the form of inverting logic gates. For the n-type WGOFET active layer, high-electron-affinity organic semiconductors, including naphthalene diimide co-polymers and a soluble fullerene derivative, have been compared, with the latter enabling a high electric double layer capacitance in the range of 1 μF cm in full accumulation and a mobility-capacitance product of 7 × 10 μF/V s. Short-term stability measurements indicate promising cycling robustness, despite operating the device in an environment typically considered harsh, especially for electron-transporting organic molecules.

Macroscopic and high-throughput printing of aligned nanostructured polymer semiconductors for MHz large-area electronics.

High-mobility semiconducting polymers offer the opportunity to develop flexible and large-area electronics for several applications, including wearable, portable and distributed sensors, monitoring and actuating devices. An enabler of this technology is a scalable printing process achieving uniform electrical performances over large area. As opposed to the deposition of highly crystalline films, orientational alignment of polymer chains, albeit commonly achieved by non-scalable/slow bulk alignment schemes, is a more robust approach towards large-area electronics.

Defect-free Naphthalene Diimide Bithiophene Copolymers with Controlled Molar Mass and High Performance via Direct Arylation Polycondensation.

A highly efficient, simple, and environmentally friendly protocol for the synthesis of an alternating naphthalene diimide bithiophene copolymer (PNDIT2) via direct arylation polycondensation (DAP) is presented. High molecular weight (MW) PNDIT2 can be obtained in quantitative yield using aromatic solvents. Most critical is the suppression of two major termination reactions of NDIBr end groups: nucleophilic substitution and solvent end-capping by aromatic solvents via C-H activation.

Multiscale effect of hierarchical self-assembled nanostructures on superhydrophobic surface.

In this work, we describe self-assembled surfaces with a peculiar multiscale organization, from the nanoscale to the microscale, exhibiting the Cassie-Baxter wetting regime with extremely low water adhesion: floating drops regime with roll-off angles < 5°. These surfaces comprise bundles of hierarchical, quasi-one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 nanostructures functionalized with a fluorinated molecule (PFNA). While the hierarchical nanostructures are the result of a gas-phase self-assembly process, their bundles are the result of the capillary forces acting between them when the PFNA solvent evaporates.

Mapping orientational order of charge-probed domains in a semiconducting polymer.

Structure-property relationships are of fundamental importance to develop quantitative models describing charge transport in organic semiconductor based electronic devices, which are among the best candidates for future portable and lightweight electronic applications. While microstructural investigations, such as those based on X-rays, electron microscopy, or polarized optical probes, provide necessary information for the rationalization of transport in macromolecular solids, a general model predicting how charge accommodates within structural maps is not yet available. Therefore, techniques capable of directly monitoring how charge is distributed when injected into a polymer film and how it correlates to structural domains can help fill this gap.

Electrospun Polymer Fibers for Electronic Applications.

Nano- and micro- fibers of conjugated polymer semiconductors are particularly interesting both for applications and for fundamental research. They allow an investigation into how electronic properties are influenced by size confinement and chain orientation within microstructures that are not readily accessible within thin films. Moreover, they open the way to many applications in organic electronics, optoelectronics and sensing.

Control of charge transport in a semiconducting copolymer by solvent-induced long-range order.

Recent reports on high-mobility organic field-effect transistors (FETs) based on donor-acceptor semiconducting co-polymers have indicated an apparently strong deviation from the paradigm, valid for a series of semi-crystalline polymers, which has been strictly correlating charges mobility to crystalline order. This poses a severe limit on the control of mobility and a fundamental question on the critical length scale which is dominating charge transport. Here we focus on a well-known model material for electron transport, a naphthalene-diimide based copolymer, and we demonstrate that mobility can be controlled over two orders of magnitude, with maximum saturation mobility exceeding 1 cm(2)/Vs at high gate voltages, by controlling the extent of orientational domains through a deposition process as simple as spin-coating.

-Type Semiconducting Polymer Fibers.

Defect-free bicomponent fibers of poly{[,'-bis(2-octyl-dodecyl)-naphthalene-1,4,5,8-bis(dicarboximide)-2,6-diyl]--5,5'-(2,2'-bithiophene)}/poly(ethyleneoxide) P(NDI2OD-T2)/PEO are fabricated by means of electrospinning and rinsed with a selective solvent to afford pure P(NDI2OD-T2) while maintaining a fibrous morphology. The elongation strength applied on the spun jet by the high electrical field induces a preferential orientation of polymer chains. An electron mobility analogous to the best obtained with a thin film-based device is achieved in single fiber transistors, and the results are unaffected by the dielectric surface treatment.