Organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) have attracted considerable attention because of their potential applications in large-area, flexible, and printed electronics. To achieve OTFT devices with desirable properties, recent research has primarily focused on molecular design, [1,2] dielectric-semiconductor interfacial engineering, [3][4][5] and device optimization. [6][7][8][9][10][11] The use of conjugated polymer blends as active materials has brought a new way to tune and optimize the electronic properties of devices; for example, ambipolar field-effect charge transport has been reported in binary blends of p-and n-type conjugated polymers or oligomers. [12,13] Semiconducting and insulating polymer blends have also attracted increasing interest, because they can combine the electronic properties of semiconducting polymers with the low cost and excellent mechanical characteristics of insulating polymers. However, the presence of the insulating component tends to degrade the device performance by diluting the current density of the film. [14,15] To the best of our knowledge, the only effective approach to overcome this drawback is controlling the blended films to form vertically phase-separated structures, to keep the connectivity of the semiconducting layer in the presence of insulating components. In recent works, the composites with this structures have been used in OTFTs to fabricate low-voltage-driven devices, to improve environmental stability or reduce semiconductor cost. [16][17][18][19][20][21] However, the phase-separation process in polymer blends is very complicated. The final morphology in the blend films is highly sensitive to many factors, including the solvent evaporation rate, solubility parameters, film-substrate interactions, the surface tension of the components, and the film thickness. Vertical phase separation can only take place under extreme conditions. [22,23] Therefore, to develop a more facile and general method for realizing high-performance, low-semiconductor-cost devices is of great technological and academic significance.In this paper, we show that the percolation threshold of semiconducting/insulating polymer blends can be drastically decreased by depositing them from a marginal solvent with temperature-dependent solubility. Morphology and crystallinestructure studies reveal that the excellent electronic performance of the devices derives from the efficient charge transport and the good connectivity observed in highly crystalline, interconnected nanofibrillar networks of semiconductors embedded in an insulator matrix.Semiconductor/insulator-blend mother solutions were prepared by blending poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and amorphous polystyrene (PS) in dichloromethane (CH 2 Cl 2 ), which is a marginal solvent for P3HT.[24] To completely dissolve P3HT, the CH 2 Cl 2 solution was kept at approximately 40 8C. For comparison, chloroform (CHCl 3 ), which is a good solvent for P3HT, was used as a reference. Thin films with different P3HT and PS ratios were fabricated on a silicon substrat...
We investigated the heterojunction effects of perylene tetracarboxylic diimide (PTCDI) derivatives on the pentacene-based field-effect transistors (FETs). Three PTCDI derivatives with different substituents were deposited onto pentacene layers and served as charge transfer dopants. The deposited PTCDI layer, which had a nominal thickness of a few layers, formed discontinuous patches on the pentacene layers and dramatically enhanced the hole mobility in the pentacene FET. Among the three PTCDI molecules tested, the octyl-substituted PTCDI, PTCDI-C8, provided the most efficient hole-doping characteristics (p-type) relative to the fluorophenyl-substituted PTCDIs, 4-FPEPTC and 2,4-FPEPTC. The organic heterojunction and doping characteristics were systematically investigated using atomic force microscopy, 2D grazing incidence X-ray diffraction studies, and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy. PTCDI-C8, bearing octyl substituents, grew laterally on the pentacene layer (2D growth), whereas 2,4-FPEPTC, with fluorophenyl substituents, underwent 3D growth. The different growth modes resulted in different contact areas and relative orientations between the pentacene and PTCDI molecules, which significantly affected the doping efficiency of the deposited adlayer. The differences between the growth modes and the thin-film microstructures in the different PTCDI patches were attributed to a mismatch between the surface energies of the patches and the underlying pentacene layer. The film-morphology-dependent doping effects observed here offer practical guidelines for achieving more effective charge transfer doping in thin-film transistors.
CO2 sequestration and polymorph selection was achieved by CaCO3 precipitation via the reaction of calcium ions and atmospheric CO2 in a basic buffer, in a process that mimicked geological sedimentation. Precipitation proceeded in yield exceeding 80% in the presence of basic buffers at room temperature over 10 h. Calcite formed mainly during the early stages of precipitation, within less than 5 h, followed by needle-like aragonite precipitation between 5 and 10 h of aging. The aragonite polymorph selection increased in the presence of carbonic anhydrase and at high solution temperatures. We found that the deposited CaCO3 polymorphs depended on the rate of calcium ion consumption and precipitation as well as the ionic strength of the basic buffer and the solution pH. We developed a method for depositing high-purity aragonitic CaCO3 crystals in solutions with temperatures exceeding 60 °C in the presence of basic buffer, using CO2 from the atmosphere without the need for seed crystals or metal ions.
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