Facile Direct Printing of DPP-Based Polymers for Organic Field-Effect Transistors and Logic Gates

Abstract

Polymer semiconductors having solubility in organic solventscanenable facile, low-cost, and large-area solution processes to fabricateelectronic devices with various applications. However, it has beena challenge to build complicated circuits by using them due to device-to-devicevariation. In this study, we designed a diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-basedpolymer with long and branched alkyl side chains to improve the solubilityof DPP polymers. While the long and branched side chains are introducedto the DPP moieties for improved solubility, the far branching pointin the side chains was expected to prevent severe steric hindranceof the long side chains and to allow DPP moieties to have & pi;-& pi;interactions and form crystalline structures. To examine the feasibilityof using P29DPP-TT as a semiconductor in integrated electronic systems,the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing technique was used in forlocal area patterning. The organic field-effect transistors (OFETs)incorporating EHD-printed P29DPP-TT yield promising field-effect mobility(& mu;(FET)) of 0.55 cm(2) V-1 s(-1). Complementary inverters and NAND/NOR logicgates were also realized by fabricating OFETs with line-printed P29DPP-TTand polymer gate dielectrics. It indicates that P29DPP-TT with excellentsolubility can be applied to solution-processed integrated electronicdevices.