Understanding the effect of polymer hydration on n-type organic mixed semiconductor transistors

Jokubas Surgailis^a, Victor Druet^a, Sophie Griggs^b, Iuliana Maria^b^,^c, Hu Chen^d, Maximilian Moser^b, Adam Marks^b, Iain McCulloch^b^,^d, Sahika Inal^a

^aKing Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

^bUniversity of Oxford, Department of Chemistry, Chemistry Research Laboratory, Oxford OX1 3TA, United Kingdom

^cImperial College London, Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom

^dKing Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), KAUST Solar Center (KSC), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia, 8462+3X9, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

Proceedings of Organic Bioelectronics Conference 2022 (OBe2022)

Online, Spain, 2022 February 8th - 9th

Organizers: Christopher Proctor, Maria Asplund and Mary Donahue

Contributed talk, Jokubas Surgailis, presentation 004
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.obe.2022.004
Publication date: 14th January 2022

Organic electrochemical transistors have garnered strong interest due to ability to efficiently transduce biological signals into electronic ones thanks to the mixed ion and electron conduction of the semiconducting film in the channel. However, the lack of understanding of these mechanisms during the operation of OECTs hinders the use of OECT-based bioelectronic technologies in circuits. Here we investigate how polymer hydration in aqueous biological media affects mixed conduction properties of n-type (electron transporting) semiconductor transistors. We use electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (eQCM-D) coupled with UV-Vis and impedance spectroscopy to observe the hydration of n-type polymers with varying lengths of ethylene glycol side-chains attached to NDI-T2 backbone. By varying the hydrophilic content as well as conformation of the n-type polymer, we modulate the hydration which in turn governs the in situ (dynamic) morphology of the film and hence the electronic and ionic mobilities. Our study suggests that hydration is not de facto beneficial for the n-type OECT performance, as has recently been observed for the p-type counterparts.¹

References:

[1] Savva, A., Hallani, R., Cendra, C., Surgailis, J., Hidalgo, T. C., Wustoni, S., Sheelamanthula, R., Chen, X., Kirkus, M., Giovannitti, A., Salleo, A., McCulloch, I., Inal, S., Balancing Ionic and Electronic Conduction for High-Performance Organic Electrochemical Transistors. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2020, 30, 1907657.

nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.

MATSUS

Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics

International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics

The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.

International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics

The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.