Abstract
Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) hold promise for developing a variety of high-performance (bio-)electronic devices/circuits. While OECTs based on p-type semiconductors have achieved tremendous progress in recent years, n-type OECTs still suffer from low performance, hampering the development of power-efficient electronics. Here, it is demonstrated that fine-tuning the molecular weight of the rigid, ladder-type n-type polymer poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL) by only one order of magnitude (from 4.9 to 51 kDa) enables the development of n-type OECTs with record-high geometry-normalized transconductance (gm,norm ≈ 11 S cm−1) and electron mobility × volumetric capacitance (µC* ≈ 26 F cm−1 V−1 s−1), fast temporal response (0.38 ms), and low threshold voltage (0.15 V). This enhancement in OECT performance is ascribed to a more efficient intermolecular charge transport in high-molecular-weight BBL than in the low-molecular-weight counterpart. OECT-based complementary inverters are also demonstrated with record-high voltage gains of up to 100 V V−1 and ultralow power consumption down to 0.32 nW, depending on the supply voltage. These devices are among the best sub-1 V complementary inverters reported to date. These findings demonstrate the importance of molecular weight in optimizing the OECT performance of rigid organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors and open for a new generation of power-efficient organic (bio-)electronic devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2106235 |
| Journal | Advanced Materials |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 Jan 27 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:H.‐Y.W. and C.‐Y.Y. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank Silan Zhang (Linköping U.) for help with EIS measurements, Qilun Zhang (Linköping U.) for assistance with dynamic light scattering measurements, and Tero‐Petri Ruoko (Linköping U.) for useful discussion. This work was financially supported by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation, the Swedish Research Council (2016‐03979, 2020–03243), ÅForsk (18‐313, 19–310), Olle Engkvists Stiftelse (204‐0256), VINNOVA (2020‐05223), the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska‐Curie project HORATES (GA‐955837) and FET‐OPEN project MITICS (GA‐964677), and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO‐Mat‐LiU 2009‐00971). H.Y.W. acknowledges the financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF‐2019R1A2C2085290, 2019R1A6A1A11044070). Work at the University of Washington was supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR‐2003518).
Funding Information:
H.-Y.W. and C.-Y.Y. contributed equally to this work. The authors thank Silan Zhang (Link?ping U.) for help with EIS measurements, Qilun Zhang (Link?ping U.) for assistance with dynamic light scattering measurements, and Tero-Petri Ruoko (Link?ping U.) for useful discussion. This work was financially supported by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation, the Swedish Research Council (2016-03979, 2020?03243), ?Forsk (18-313, 19?310), Olle Engkvists Stiftelse (204-0256), VINNOVA (2020-05223), the European Commission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie project HORATES (GA-955837) and FET-OPEN project MITICS (GA-964677), and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Link?ping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU 2009-00971). H.Y.W. acknowledges the financial support from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019R1A2C2085290, 2019R1A6A1A11044070). Work at the University of Washington was supported by the National Science Foundation (DMR-2003518).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Advanced Materials published by Wiley-VCH GmbH
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Materials Science(all)
- Mechanics of Materials
- Mechanical Engineering