Current Status and Opportunities of Organic Thin-Film Transistor Technologies

Ajudes: National Key Research and Development Program of "Strategic Advanced Electronic Materials" under Grant 2016YFB0401100 and in part by the NSFC of China under Grant 61274083 and Grant 61334008.Attributed to its advantages of super mechanical flexibility, very low-temperature processing, and compatibility with low cost and high throughput manufacturing, organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) technology is able to bring electrical, mechanical, and industrial benefits to a wide range of new applications by activating nonflat surfaces with flexible displays, sensors, and other electronic functions. Despite both strong application demand and these significant technological advances, there is still a gap to be filled for OTFT technology to be widely commercially adopted. This paper providesa comprehensive reviewof the current status of OTFT technologies ranging from material, device, process, and integration, to design and system applications, and clarifies the real challenges behind to be addressed

The role of printed electronics and related technologies in the development of smart connected products

The emergence of novel materials with flexible and stretchable characteristics, and the use of new processing technologies, have allowed for the development of new connected devices and applications. Using printed electronics, traditional electronic elements are being combined with flexible components and allowing for the development of new smart connected products. As a result, devices that are capable of sensing, actuating, and communicating remotely while being low-cost, lightweight, conformable, and easily customizable are already being developed. Combined with the expansion of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and encryption algorithms, the overall attractiveness of these technologies has prompted new applications to appear in almost every sector. The exponential technological development is currently allowing for the ‘smartification’ of cities, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, logistics, among others. In this review article, the steps towards this transition are approached, starting from the conceptualization of smart connected products and their main markets. The manufacturing technologies are then presented, with focus on printing-based ones, compatible with organic materials. Finally, each one of the printable components is presented and some applications are discussed.This work has been supported by NORTE-06-3559- FSE-000018, integrated in the invitation NORTE59-2018-41, aiming the Hiring of Highly Qualified Human Resources, co-financed by the Regional Operational Programme of the North 2020, thematic area of Competitiveness and Employment, through the European Social Fund (ESF), and by the scope of projects with references UIDB/05256/2020 and UIDP/05256/2020, financed by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal

Nanoscale Architectures for Smart Bio-Interfaces: Advances and Challenges

Volcanology & seismolog

Balancing Hole and Electron Conduction in Ambipolar Split-Gate Thin-Film Transistors

Complementary organic electronics is a key enabling technology for the development of new applications including smart ubiquitous sensors, wearable electronics, and healthcare devices. High-performance, high-functionality and reliable complementary circuits require n- and p-type thin-film transistors with balanced characteristics. Recent advancements in ambipolar organic transistors in terms of semiconductor and device engineering demonstrate the great potential of this route but, unfortunately, the actual development of ambipolar organic complementary electronics is currently hampered by the uneven electron (n-type) and hole (p-type) conduction in ambipolar organic transistors. Here we show ambipolar organic thin-film transistors with balanced n-type and p-type operation. By manipulating air exposure and vacuum annealing conditions, we show that well-balanced electron and hole transport properties can be easily obtained. The method is used to control hole and electron conductions in split-gate transistors based on a solution-processed donor-acceptor semiconducting polymer. Complementary logic inverters with balanced charging and discharging characteristics are demonstrated. These findings may open up new opportunities for the rational design of complementary electronics based on ambipolar organic transistors. ? 2017 The Author(s).114Ysciescopu

Printing of Fine Metal Electrodes for Organic Thin‐Film Transistors

Attributed to the excellent mechanical flexibility and compatibility with low‐cost and high‐throughput printing processes, the organic thin‐film transistor (OTFT) is a promising technology of choice for a wide range of flexible and large‐area electronics applications. Among various printing techniques, the drop‐on‐demand inkjet printing is one of the most versatile ones to form patterned electrodes with the advantages of mask‐less patterning, non‐contact, low cost, and scalability to large‐area manufacturing. However, the limited positional accuracy of the inkjet printer system and the spreading of the ink droplets on the substrate surface, which is influenced by both the ink properties and the substrate surface energy, make it difficult to obtain fine‐line morphologies and define the exact channel length as required, especially for relatively narrow‐line and short‐channel patterns. This chapter introduces the printing of uniform fine silver electrodes and down scaling of the channel length by controlling ink wetting on polymer substrate. All‐solution‐processed/printable OTFTs with short channels (<20 µm) are also demonstrated by incorporating fine inkjet‐printed silver electrodes into a low‐voltage (<3 V) OTFT architecture. This work would provide a commercially competitive manufacturing approach to developing printable low‐voltage OTFTs for low‐power electronics applications

Low-voltage organic transistors with high transconductance

This thesis presents the development of low-voltage organic thin-film transistors with high transconductance. This was achieved by employing ultra-thin bi-layer gate dielectric consisting of aluminium oxide (AlOx) and a self-assembled monolayer of octadecyl phosphonic acid (C18PA) and by increasing the channel width of the transistors through the implementation of the multi-finger source/drain contacts. The transistors based on dinaphtho[2,3-b:2',3'-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) exhibited low turn-on voltage and a.c. transconductance around 30 to 60 µS. Transistor amplifiers based on such transistors exhibited voltage gain approaching 10 V/V and a gain of about 2 V/V when the supply voltage was limited to 5 V. Next, a series of [n]phenacenes ([n] = 5, 6, or 7) was used for the first time in combination with the thin AlOx/C18PA dielectric bi-layer. Regardless of the substrate and the source-drain contact geometry, the field-effect mobility of such transistors was found to increase with increasing length of the conjugated [n]phenacene core, leading to the best performance for [7]phenacene with the largest average field-effect mobility of 0.27 cm2/V⋅s for transistors on glass and 0.092 cm2/V⋅s for transistors on flexible PEN. The highest transconductance of 12.2 µS was achieved for [7]phenacene transistors on glass, which was lower than that achieved for DNTT transistors. In addition, nearly hysteresis-free behaviour, improved charge carrier injection/extraction properties, and reduced threshold voltage were achieved. Finally, a semi-empirical transistor model was developed in Matlab. The model was validated using d.c. and a.c. measurements obtained on DNTT transistors with high transconductance. Four fitting parameters were extracted by optimising a fitting function using genetic algorithm. The model reproduces the d.c. transistor measurements with high accuracy. The error between the measured and simulated peak-to-peak a.c. transconductance values ranged from 1.7% to 11.6%.This thesis presents the development of low-voltage organic thin-film transistors with high transconductance. This was achieved by employing ultra-thin bi-layer gate dielectric consisting of aluminium oxide (AlOx) and a self-assembled monolayer of octadecyl phosphonic acid (C18PA) and by increasing the channel width of the transistors through the implementation of the multi-finger source/drain contacts. The transistors based on dinaphtho[2,3-b:2',3'-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) exhibited low turn-on voltage and a.c. transconductance around 30 to 60 µS. Transistor amplifiers based on such transistors exhibited voltage gain approaching 10 V/V and a gain of about 2 V/V when the supply voltage was limited to 5 V. Next, a series of [n]phenacenes ([n] = 5, 6, or 7) was used for the first time in combination with the thin AlOx/C18PA dielectric bi-layer. Regardless of the substrate and the source-drain contact geometry, the field-effect mobility of such transistors was found to increase with increasing length of the conjugated [n]phenacene core, leading to the best performance for [7]phenacene with the largest average field-effect mobility of 0.27 cm2/V⋅s for transistors on glass and 0.092 cm2/V⋅s for transistors on flexible PEN. The highest transconductance of 12.2 µS was achieved for [7]phenacene transistors on glass, which was lower than that achieved for DNTT transistors. In addition, nearly hysteresis-free behaviour, improved charge carrier injection/extraction properties, and reduced threshold voltage were achieved. Finally, a semi-empirical transistor model was developed in Matlab. The model was validated using d.c. and a.c. measurements obtained on DNTT transistors with high transconductance. Four fitting parameters were extracted by optimising a fitting function using genetic algorithm. The model reproduces the d.c. transistor measurements with high accuracy. The error between the measured and simulated peak-to-peak a.c. transconductance values ranged from 1.7% to 11.6%

Development and Characterization of highly flexible and conformable electronic devices for wearable applications

As shown in the story, humanity has tried to develop objects, tools, and devices that could first help to survive in a difficult environment and then improve everyday life. The idea of creating objects that can be worn to restore or improve human abilities or to help during daily routine has fueled technological development and research since the beginning of technological advancement. Wearable technology goes back hundreds of years, and one of the first examples was the invention of glasses to restore the sight, or the wristwatch when big watches were reduced to something that people could take with them anywhere. However, it could be considered that, only when the computer age was established, wearable electronic devices were developed and started to spread out and get into the market. Wearable electronics are a category of technological devices that can be transferred into clothes or directly in touch with the body, typically as accessories or clothing, and these devices can be designed to provide different functionalities, such as notification sending, communication abilities, health and fitness monitoring, and even augmented or virtual reality experiences. In recent years, organic electronics have been deeply investigated as a technology platform to develop devices using biocompatible materials that can be deposited and processed on flexible and even ultra-flexible substrates. The high mechanical flexibility of such materials leads to a new category of devices going beyond wearable devices to more-than-wearable applications. In this context, epidermal electronics is a closely related field that focuses on developing electronic devices that can be directly attached to the skin with a minimally invasive, comfortable, and possibly enabling long-term application. The main object of this Ph.D. research activity is the development and optimization of a technology for the realization of wearable and more-than-wearable devices, able to meet all the new needs in this field, such as the low-cost production process and the mechanical flexibility of the devices and deposition over large areas on unconventional substrates, exploiting all the features and advantages of the organic electronic field, but also finding some solution to overcome the disadvantages of this technology. In this work, different application fields were studied, such as health monitoring through biopotential acquisitions, the development, and optimization of multimodal physical sensors able to detect simultaneously pressure and temperature for tactile and artificial skin applications, and the development of flexible high-performing transistors as a building block for the future of wearable and electronic-skin applications

Organic Thin Film Transistor Integration

This thesis examines strategies to exploit existing materials and techniques to advance organic thin film transistor (OTFT) technology in device performance, device manufacture, and device integration. To enhance device performance, optimization of plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposited (PECVD) gate dielectric thin film and investigation of interface engineering methodologies are explored. To advance device manufacture, OTFT fabrication strategies are developed to enable organic circuit integration. Progress in device integration is achieved through demonstration of OTFT integration into functional circuits for applications such as active-matrix displays and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. OTFT integration schemes featuring a tailored OTFT-compatible photolithography process and a hybrid photolithography-inkjet printing process are developed. They enable the fabrication of fully-patterned and fully-encapsulated OTFTs and circuits. Research on improving device performance of bottom-gate bottom-contact poly(3,3'''-dialkyl-quarter-thiophene) (PQT-12) OTFTs on PECVD silicon nitride (SiNx) gate dielectric leads to the following key conclusions: (a) increasing silicon content in SiNx gate dielectric leads to enhancement in field-effect mobility and on/off current ratio; (b) surface treatment of SiNx gate dielectric with a combination of O2 plasma and octyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) delivers the best OTFT performance; (c) an optimal O2 plasma treatment duration exists for attaining highest field-effect mobility and is linked to a “turn-around” effect; and (d) surface treatment of the gold (Au) source/drain contacts by 1-octanethiol SAM limits mobility and should be omitted. There is a strong correlation between the electrical characteristics and the interfacial characteristics of OTFTs. In particular, the device mobility is influenced by the interplay of various interfacial mechanisms, including surface energy, surface roughness, and chemical composition. Finally, the collective knowledge from these investigations facilitates the integration of OTFTs into organic circuits, which is expected to contribute to the development of new generation of all-organic displays for communication devices and other pertinent applications. A major outcome of this work is that it provides an economical means for organic transistor and circuit integration, by enabling use of the well-established PECVD infrastructure, yet not compromising the performance of electronics