Air-flow navigated crystal growth for TIPS pentacene-based organic thin-film transistors

Zhengran He, Jihua Chen, Zhenzhong Sun, Greg Szulczewski, Dawen Li

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

61 Scopus citations

Abstract

6,13-Bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS pentacene) is a promising active channel material of organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) due to its solubility, stability, and high mobility. However, the growth of TIPS pentacene crystals is intrinsically anisotropic and thus leads to significant variation in the performance of OTFTs. In this paper, air flow is utilized to effectively improve the TIPS pentacene crystal orientation and enhance performance consistency in OTFTs, and the resulted films are examined with optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thin-film transistor measurements. Under air-flow navigation (AFN), TIPS pentacene drop-cast from toluene solution has been observed to form thin films with improved crystal orientation and increased areal coverage on substrates, which subsequently lead to a fourfold increase of average hole mobility and one order of magnitude enhancement in performance consistency defined by the ratio of average mobility to the standard deviation of the field-effect mobilities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1819-1826
Number of pages8
JournalOrganic Electronics
Volume13
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2012

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Grant Committee (RGC) fund and the Center for Materials for Information Technology (MINT) at the University of Alabama. A portion of this research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is sponsored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by the Division of Scientific User Facilities, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and U.S. Department of Energy.

FundersFunder number
Center for Materials for Information Technology
MINT
RGC
U.S. Department of Energy
Basic Energy Sciences
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
University of Alabama

    Keywords

    • Air-flow navigation
    • Crystallization anisotropy
    • Organic thin film transistors
    • TIPS pentacene

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