Conjugated polymer/paraffin blends for organic field-effect transistors with high environmental stability.

Improving the environmental stability of conjugated polymers remains a fundamental challenge that limits their widespread adoption and commercial application in electronic and photonic devices. Although paraffin can have excellent barrier properties against moisture in ambient air, the use of conjugated polymer/paraffin blends to fabricate organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) with high environmental stability has not been attempted. Here, we demonstrate that conjugated polymer/paraffin blends can greatly enhance the environmental stability of OFETs.

Controlled Self-Assembly of Conjugated Polymers via a Solvent Vapor Pre-Treatment for Use in Organic Field-Effect Transistors.

A facile solution-processing strategy toward well-ordered one-dimensional nanostructures of conjugated polymers via a non-solvent vapor treatment was demonstrated, which resulted in enhancements to the charge transport characteristics of the polymers. The amount of crystalline poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) nanofibers was precisely controlled by simply varying the exposure time of solutions of P3HT solutions to non-solvent vapor. The effects of non-solvent vapor exposure on the molecular ordering and morphologies of the resultant P3HT films were systematically investigated using ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, polarized optical microscopy (POM), grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).

Large-Scale Alignment of Polymer Semiconductor Nanowires for Efficient Charge Transport via Controlled Evaporation of Confined Fluids.

Long-range alignment of conjugated polymers is as critical as polymer chain packing for achieving efficient charge transport in polymer thin films used in electronic and optoelectronic devices. Here, the present study reports a facile, scalable strategy that enables the deposition of macroscopically aligned polymer semiconductor nanowire (NW)-array films with highly enhanced charge carrier mobility, using a modified controlled evaporative self-assembly (MCESA) technique. Organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on highly oriented poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)-NW films exhibit more than 10-fold enhancement of carrier mobility, with the highest mobility of 0.

Solvent Additive-Assisted Anisotropic Assembly and Enhanced Charge Transport of π-Conjugated Polymer Thin Films.

Charge transport in π-conjugated polymer films involves π-π interactions within or between polymer chains. Here, we demonstrate a facile solution processing strategy that provides enhanced intra- and interchain π-π interactions of the resultant polymer films using a good solvent additive with low volatility. These increased interactions result in enhanced charge transport properties.