The
electronics era is flourishing and morphing itself into Internet
of Everything, IoE. At the same time, questions arise on the issue
of electronic materials employed: especially their natural availability
and low-cost fabrication, their functional stability in devices, and
finally their desired biodegradation at the end of their life cycle.
Hydrogen bonded pigments and natural dyes like indigo, anthraquinone
and acridone are not only biodegradable and of bio-origin but also
have functionality robustness and offer versatility in designing electronics
and sensors components. With this Perspective, we intend to coalesce
all the scattered reports on the above-mentioned classes of hydrogen
bonded semiconductors, spanning across several disciplines and many
active research groups. The article will comprise both published and
unpublished results, on stability during aging, upon electrical, chemical
and thermal stress, and will finish with an outlook section related
to biological degradation and biological stability of selected hydrogen
bonded molecules employed as semiconductors in organic electronic
devices. We demonstrate that when the purity, the long-range order
and the strength of chemical bonds, are considered, then the Hydrogen
bonded organic semiconductors are the privileged class of materials
having the potential to compete with inorganic semiconductors. As
an experimental historical study of stability, we fabricated and characterized
organic transistors from a material batch synthesized in 1932 and
compared the results to a fresh material batch.
Natural dielectrics are emerging nowadays as a niche selection of materials for applications targeting biocompatibility and biodegradability for electronics and sensors within the overall effort of scientific community to achieve sustainable development and to build environmental consciousness. The two natural resins analyzed in this study, silver fir and Rocky mountain fir demonstrate robust dielectric properties and excellent film forming capabilities, while being trap free dielectrics in high‐performance organic field effect transistors (OFETs) operating at voltages as low as 1 V. Immense research possibilities are demonstrated through the avenue of inorganic nanofillers insertions in the natural resins film, that opens the door for fabrication of very low voltage OFETs with high dielectric constant insulating layers.
Lignin is an abundant biopolymer deriving from industrial pulping processes of lignocellulosic biomass. Despite the huge amount of yearly produced lignin waste, it finds scarce application as a fine material and is usually destined to be combusted in thermochemical plants to feed, with low efficiency, other industrial processes. So far, the use of lignin in materials science is limited by the scarce knowledge of its molecular structure and properties, depending also on its isolation method. However, lignin represents an intriguing feedstock of organic material. Here, the structural and chemical‐physical characteristics of two kraft lignins, L1 and L2, are analyzed. First, several molecular characterization techniques, such as attenuated total reflectance ‐ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, elemental analyses, gel permeation chromatography, evolved gas analysis‐mass spectrometry, UV–vis, 31P‐ and 13C‐ nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies are applied to get insights into their different structures and their degree of molecular degradation. Then, their efficient application as gate dielectric materials is demonstrated for organic field‐effect transistors, finding the increased capacity of L1 with respect to L2 in triggering functional and efficient devices with both p‐type and n‐type organic semiconductor molecules.
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