A Photopatternable Pentacene Precursor for Use in Organic Thin-Film Transistors

Abstract

We demonstrate that modifying pentacene to incorporate an acid-labile moiety into its molecular structure leads to a new precursor that can be easily deposited, photopatterned, and processed via wet-chemical methods to produce organic semiconducting devices exhibiting good electrical characteristics. Acidic conditions produced by ultraviolet illumination of a co-deposited photoacid generator greatly accelerate the local conversion of this N-sulfinyl-tert-butylcarbamate pentacene adduct back to pentacene. Photopatterned thin-film transistors exhibit carrier mobilities in excess of 0.1 cm² V^-1 s^-1, making this an attractive precursor for fabrication of large-area organic electronics via solution-phase methods.