1. Toward Sustainability in All-Printed Accumulation Mode Organic Electrochemical Transistors
- Author
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Makhinia, Anatolii, Bynens, Lize, Goossens, Arwin, Deckers, Jasper, Lutsen, Laurence, Vandewal, Koen, Maes, Wouter, Beni, Valerio, Andersson Ersman, Peter, Makhinia, Anatolii, Bynens, Lize, Goossens, Arwin, Deckers, Jasper, Lutsen, Laurence, Vandewal, Koen, Maes, Wouter, Beni, Valerio, and Andersson Ersman, Peter
- Abstract
This study reports on the first all-printed vertically stacked organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) operating in accumulation mode; the devices, relying on poly([4,4?-bis(2-(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethoxy)ethoxy)-2,2?-bithiophen-5,5?-diyl]-alt-[thieno[3,2-b]thiophene-2,5-diyl]) (pgBTTT) as the active channel material, are fabricated via a combination of screen and inkjet printing technologies. The resulting OECTs (W/L ≈5) demonstrate good switching performance; gm, norm ≈13 mS cm?1, µC* ≈21 F cm?1 V?1 s?1, ON?OFF ratio > 104 and good cycling stability upon continuous operation for 2 h. The inkjet printing process of pgBTTT is established by first solubilizing the polymer in dihydrolevoglucosenone (Cyrene), a non-toxic, cellulose-derived, and biodegradable solvent. The resulting ink formulations exhibit good jettability, thereby providing reproducible and stable p-type accumulation mode all-printed OECTs with high performance. Besides the environmental and safety benefits of this solvent, this study also demonstrates the assessment of how the solvent affects the performance of spin-coated OECTs, which justifies the choice of Cyrene as an alternative to commonly used harmful solvents such as chloroform, also from a device perspective. Hence, this approach shows a new possibility of obtaining more sustainable printed electronic devices, which will eventually result in all-printed OECT-based logic circuits operating in complementary mode., This project received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 964677 (MITICS). The authors would like to thank Jessica Åhlin for valuable electrolyte discussions. A.M. and P.A.E. thank Vinnova for financial support (grant agreement no. 2023-01337). W.M., L.B., and A.G. thank the FWO Vlaanderen for financial support (WEAVE project G025922N and Ph.D. grant 1S70122N)
- Published
- 2024
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