Ultrathin film with thickness below 15 nm of organic semiconductors provides excellent platform for some fundamental research and practical applications in the field of organic electronics. However, it is quite challenging to develop a general principle for the growth of uniform and continuous ultrathin film over large area. Dip-coating is a useful technique to prepare diverse structures of organic semiconductors, but the assembly of organic semiconductors in dip-coating is quite complicated, and there are no reports about the core rules for the growth of ultrathin film via dip-coating until now. In this work, we develop a general strategy for the growth of ultrathin film of organic semiconductor via dip-coating, which provides a relatively facile model to analyze the growth behavior. The balance between the three direct factors (nucleation rate, assembly rate, and recession rate) is the key to determine the growth of ultrathin film. Under the direction of this rule, ultrathin films of four organic semiconductors are obtained. The field-effect transistors constructed on the ultrathin film show good field-effect property. This work provides a general principle and systematic guideline to prepare ultrathin film of organic semiconductors via dip-coating, which would be highly meaningful for organic electronics as well as for the assembly of other materials via solution processes.

A highly-sensitive, novel airflow sensor is demonstrated with an ultrathin reduced graphene oxide film with tunable interlayer gaps.

Electrodes, one of the key components of organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs), exert great influence on the device performance as well as circuit fabrication. Conventional metal electrodes generally show poor contact quality with organic semiconductors, especially in bottom‐contact geometry. Development of appropriate modification materials and methods for metal electrodes is an efficient way to improve OFET performance, which is, however, quite a challenging task. In this work, a facile strategy is developed to modify the metal surface with graphene oxide (GO) via covalent bonds for application in OFETs, which has not been reported before. This selective covalent modification strategy is compatible with diverse patterning techniques, and the covalently linked GO‐Au electrode exhibits strong robustness against solvent treatment. Remarkably, the GO‐Au electrode shows very good generality with both p‐type and n‐type organic semiconductors, which contributes to the realization of p‐/n‐type OFETs with significantly improved performance compared with the pristine Au electrode. The facile and low temperature modification method, compatibility with diverse patterning techniques, robustness against solvent treatment, good generality with organic semiconductors, and high OFET performance enable the strategy to be very promising for application in the field of organic electronics.

The modification of dielectric surface with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) such as octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) is a widely used method to tune the electrical property of diverse electronic devices based on organic semiconductors, graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and so forth. The surface roughness of self-assembled OTS monolayer is a key factor in determining its effect on device performance, but the preparation of an ultrasmooth OTS monolayer is a technologically challenging task. In this work, an ultrasmooth OTS monolayer is prepared via a facile peeling method, which may serve as a postremedy strategy to remove the protuberant aggregates. Such a method has not been reported before. With organic semiconductors as a testing model, ultrasmooth OTS may significantly improve the charge mobility of organic field-effect transistors (OFETs). P-type dinaphtho[2,3-b:2',3'-f]thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (DNTT) OFET with an ultrasmooth OTS monolayer yields good reproducibility and unprecendented maximum mobility of 8.16 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), which is remarkably superior to that of the OFET with a pristine OTS monolayer. This work develops a simple method to resolve the common and significant problem of the quality of OTS modification, which would be highly promising for electronic applications as well as other fields such as surface and interface engineering.

Composite gratings play important roles in modern information technology. However, such gratings are generally based on the same structural pattern with limited types, and their structural parameters are difficult to tune, which greatly limit their application. A mechanically tunable composite grating in bilayer film, which orthogonally couples a sinusoidal phase grating and a rectangular phase grating, is developed here. The structural parameters of the grating can be well tuned by mechanically stretching or releasing the grating in the uniaxial direction. Naturally, this property allows tunable light manipulation: that is, a single incident laser beam can be split into a 2D diffraction beams array, and the intensity and propagation angle of each diffraction beam can be precisely controlled via mechanical manipulation of the grating. A theoretical model based on scalar diffraction theory that can quantitatively describe and accurately predict this light manipulation is further established. In addition, after treatment with an electron beam, the tunable structures can be immobilized, which enables the storage of information in the bilayer film. This work may open up new pathways for composite grating fabrication and further extend the applications of composite gratings in diverse fields.

Electrode materials and geometry play a crucial role in the charge injection efficiency in organic transistors. Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) electrodes show good compatibility with an organic semiconductor from the standpoint of energy levels and ordered growth of the organic semiconductor, both of which are favourable for charge injection. However, the wide electrode edge (>10 nm) in commonly-used RGO electrodes is generally detrimental to charge injection. In this study, ultrathin (about 3 nm) RGO electrodes are fabricated via a covalency-based assembly strategy, which has advantages such as robustness against solvents, high conductivity, transparency, and easy scaling-up. More remarkably, the ultrathin electrode fabricated in this study has a narrow edge, which may facilitate the diffusion and assembly of organic semiconductors and thus form a uniform semiconductor film across the electrode/channel junction area. As a result, the minimized electrode edge may significantly improve the charge injection in organic transistors compared with thick electrodes.

Abstract:To realize the practical applications of flexible pressure sensors, the high performance (sensitivity and response time) as well as more functionalities are highly desired. In this work, we fabricated a piezoresistive pressure sensor based on the micro-structured composites films of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS). In addition, we establish efficient strategies to improve key performance of our pressure sensor. Its sensitivity is improved up to 474.13 kPa −1 by minimizing pressure independent resistance of sensor, and response time is shorten as small as 2 µs by enhancing the elastic modulus of polymer elastomer. Benefiting from the high performance, the functionalities of sensors are successfully extended to the accurate detection of high frequency mechanical vibration (~300 Hz) and large range of air pressure (6-101 kPa), both of which are not achieved before.

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