Light-Responsive Planar Gate for Optically Modulable Organic Electrochemical Transistors (OECTs)

Federica Corrado^a, Ottavia Bettucci^a, Mirko Prato^b, Francesca Santoro^a^,^c^,^d

^aCenter for Advanced Biomaterials for Healthcare, Tissue Electronics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Naples, Italy

^bMaterials Characterization Facility, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy

^cFaculty of Electrical Engineering and IT, RWTH Aachen, Germany

^dInstitute for Biological Information Processing - Bioelectronics, IBI-3, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany

Proceedings of Organic Bioelectronics Conference 2022 (OBe2022)

Online, Spain, 2022 February 8th - 9th

Organizers: Christopher Proctor, Maria Asplund and Mary Donahue

Poster, Federica Corrado, 018
Publication date: 14th January 2022

ePoster:

In the last decade, organic material-based electronic devices, such as Organic Field-Effect Transistors (OFET) and Organic Electrochemical Transistors (OECTs) received a lot of interest in bioelectronics due to their highly efficient transducing capability in biological environment which allows them to act as biosensors for biomolecules detection or for cell electrophysiological recording ¹. Nowadays, by changing the electrodes’ material it is possible to obtain a wide variety of OFETs and OECTs with improved features and performance, such as sensitivity, selectivity and limit of detection ². Anyway, OECTs represent the most promising alternative to be integrated with cells and tissues, allowing the development of “organ-on-a-chip" platforms ³. This is mainly due to the possibility to use an extensive range of organic materials among which conducting polymers (CPs) emerge as the best candidates due to their low stiffness, biocompatibility and transduction mechanisms at the interface with biological systems ⁴.

In this context, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) show excellent features such as conductivity, biocompatibility and stability in biological environment ⁵. Moreover, PEDOT:PSS-based OECTs allow the fabrication of planar architectures avoiding the use of Ag/AgCl top gates which renders the device integration into biological environment critical ³.

Recently, a double-gate OECT has been developed, able to respond to an external trigger, such as a pH change, with an output current modulation 6. Among different types of stimuli (T, pH, electricity, etc.), light is considered the less invasive, also capable to be delivered instantaneously and into a precise location⁷.

The aim of this work is the fabrication of a PEDOT:PSS-based OECT bearing a light modulable planar gate made with a photo-responsive PEDOT:PSS. To reach this goal a novel dynamic PEDOT:PSS with azobenzenes moieties has been synthesized to combine the conductivity of PEDOT:PSS and the photo-switching mechanism of azobenzenes in a unique light-responsive conductive polymer ⁹.

The synthesis of the azobenzene functionalized PEDOT (azo-tz-PEDOT:PSS) has been successfully obtained through electrodeposition of the previously synthesized N3-PEDOT:PSS 8 on ITO glass followed by surface post-functionalization with alkyne-bearing azobenzenes via Huisgen [3+2] azide-alkyne cycloaddition ¹⁰, ¹¹.

The so obtained azo-tz-PEDOT:PSS film has been fully characterized by means of infrared spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Meanwhile, the electrochemical characterization is performed through cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurements.

The light-responsive CP is synthesized and characterized; preliminary results show its successful integration as planar gate electrode in OECTs, and its capability to modulate the output current after light stimulation.

References:

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[6] A. E. Kirchan, K.-T. Kim, M. K. Steward, S. Choi, A PEDOT:PSS-Based Organic Electrochemical Transistor with a Novel Double-in-Plane Gate Electrode for pH Sensing Application, IEEE, Kaohsiung, 2017, 214–217.

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