A transfer printing method for fabricating organic electronics onto flexible substrates has been developed. The method relies primarily on differential adhesion for the transfer of a printable layer from a transfer substrate to a device substrate. The works of adhesion and cohesion for successful printing are discussed and developed for a model organic thin-film transistor device consisting of a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, gold (Au) gate and source/drain electrodes, a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) [or poly(4-vinylphenol)] dielectric layer, and a pentacene (Pn) organic semiconductor layer. The device components are sequentially printed onto the PET device substrate with no mixed processing steps performed on the device substrate. Optimum printing conditions for the Pn layer were determined to be 600psi and 120°C for 3min. A set of devices with a PMMA dielectric layer was measured as a function of channel length and exhibited a contact resistance corrected mobility of 0.237cm2∕Vs. This is larger than the mobility measured for a control device consisting of Pn thermally deposited onto the thermally oxidized surface of a silicon substrate (SiO2∕Si) with e-beam deposited Au top source/drain contacts. The structure of transfer printed Pn films was also investigated using x-ray diffraction. The basal spacing correlation length for a 50nm Pn film printed at 600psi and 120°C for 3min onto a PMMA surface showed a 35% increase as compared to an unprinted film on a thermally oxidized silicon substrate. The crystalline size was seen to correlate with the mobility as a function of printing conditions.

A printing process for high-resolution transfer of all components for organic electronic devices on plastic substrates has been developed and demonstrated for pentacene (Pn), poly (3-hexylthiophene) and carbon nanotube (CNT) thin-film transistors (TFTs). The nanotransfer printing process allows fabrication of an entire device without exposing any component to incompatible processes and with reduced need for special chemical preparation of transfer or device substrates. Devices on plastic substrates include a Pn TFT with a saturation, field-effect mobility of 0.09 cm 2 (Vs) -1 and on/off ratio approximately 10 4 and a CNT TFT which exhibits ambipolar behavior and no hysteresis.

Black-to-transmissive switching polymer electrochromic devices (ECDs) were designed using a set of spray-processable cathodically coloring polymers, a non-color-changing electroactive polymer poly(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyloxy-4-yl methacrylate) (PTMA) as the charge-compensating counter electrode, and a highly conducting gel electrolyte (6.5 mS cm(-1)). The color "black" was obtained by utilizing (1) individual copolymers absorbing across the visible spectrum, and (2) blends and bilayers of several polymer electrochromes with complementary spectral absorption. Neutral-state black and ink-like dark purple-blue (or "ink-black") donor-acceptor (DA) copolymers composed of the electron-donor 3,4-propylenedioxythiophene (ProDOT) and the electron-acceptor 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole (BTD) building units, which possess relatively homogeneous absorption profiles across the visible spectrum, were chosen for their propensity to switch to transmissive states upon electrochemical oxidation. A blend of magenta and cyan polymers (PProDOT-(CH(2)OEtHx)(2) and P(ProDOT-BTD-ProDOT), respectively) was produced with the goal of generating the same dark purple-blue color as that obtained with the "ink-black" DA copolymer. While the multi-polymer ECDs demonstrate high contrasts (up to 50%T), and switch from a saturated purple-blue color (L*=32, a*=13, b*=-46) to a light green-blue transmissive state (L*=83, a*=-3, b*=-6), devices made with the DA electrochromic copolymers switch more than two times faster (0.7 s to attain 95% of the full optical change) than those involving the polymer blends (1.6 s), and exhibit more neutral achromatic colors (L*=38, a*=5, b*=-25 for the colored state and L*=87, a*=-3, b*=-2 for the bleached state, correspondingly). The results obtained suggest that these materials should prove to be applicable in both transmissive- (window-type) and reflective-type ECDs.

Abstract:In percolating networks of mixed metallic and semiconducting CNTs, there is a tradeoff between high on-current (dense networks) and high on/off ratio (sparse networks in which the metallic CNT fraction is not percolating). Experiments on devices in a transistor configuration and Monte Carlo simulations were performed to determine the scaling behavior of device resistivity as a function of channel length (L) for CNT density p in the range 0.04 -1.29 CNT/μm 2 in the on-and off-states. Optimized devices with field-effect mobility up to 50 cm 2 /Vs at on/off ratio > 10 3 were obtained at W = 50 μm, L > 70 μm for p = 0.54 -0.81 CNTs/μm 2 .

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We report the spontaneous formation of uniformly distributed arrays of "tips" (tall conical hillocks) upon oxidation of palladium (Pd) thin films. The formation of the palladium oxide tips depended on the thickness and granularity of the Pd film and on annealing and oxidation conditions. As the Pd film thickness increased from 40 to 200 nanometers, the average height of the tips increased from 0.5 to 1.2 micrometers, their height distribution became broader, and their density decreased from 55 x 10(6) to 12 x 10(6) per square centimeter. Enhanced photoelectron emission from locations corresponding to the tips suggests their possible use in field emission applications.

Articles you may be interested inFabrication and characterization of metal-molecule-silicon devices Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 033508 (2007); Trapping and detrapping of electrons photoinjected from silicon to ultrathin SiO 2 overlayers. I. In vacuum and in the presence of ambient oxygen Photoelectron emission microscopy ͑PEEM͒ has been used to investigate simple device structures buried under ultrathin oxides. In particular, we have imaged Au-SiO 2 and p-type Si-SiO 2 structures and have demonstrated that PEEM is sensitive to these buried structures. Oxide overlayers ranging up to 15.3 nm were grown by systematically varying the exposure time of the structures to a plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor deposition process. The change in image contrast as the oxide thickness increases was used to quantify the inelastic mean-free path of low-energy photoelectrons ͑ϳ1 eV͒ in amorphous silicon dioxide. For Au structures we find that the dominant mean-free path for photoelectrons in the overlying oxide is about 1.18Ϯ0.2 nm. Yet, we find a residual observable signal from the buried Au structure through roughly 13 oxide attenuation lengths. The signal attenuation from the Au can be explained by the spread of the photoelectron energies and the energy dependence of the electron-phonon interaction. Similar intensity attenuation behavior is also seen from heavily p-doped silicon (10 20 cm Ϫ3 ) regions, but the signal is only observable through roughly 3.0 nm of oxide, and the signal from the 10 18 cm Ϫ3 regions is not detectable through the thinnest oxide layer of approximately 2.5 nm. Here, the energy spread ͑ϳ2.0 eV͒ is more narrowly distributed about the phonon loss energies, leading to the observed attenuation behavior from heavily p-doped silicon.

A simple scalable scheme is reported for fabricating suspended carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNT-FETs) without exposing pristine as-grown carbon nanotubes to subsequent chemical processing. Versatility and ease of the technique is demonstrated by controlling the density of suspended nanotubes and reproducing devices multiple times on the same electrode set. Suspending the carbon nanotubes results in ambipolar transport behavior with negligible hysteresis. The Hooges constant of the suspended CNT-FETs (2.6 x 10-3) is about 20 times lower than for control CNT-FETs on SiO2 (5.6 x 10-2).Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure