Polymer transistors fabricated by painting of metallic nanoparticles

Abstract

In this letter the authors describe the fabrication of high performance polymer thin film transistors using an aqueous based silver colloid to form source and drain electrodes patterned by brush painting. The electrode dimensions were controlled by a surface energy pattern defined by soft contact printing of a self-assembled monolayer 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyl-trichlorosilane on a SiO2 surface which acted as a dewetting layer for the painted silver particle suspension. Another self-assembled monolayer of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecanethiol was also used to increase the work function of the patterned silver electrodes in order to decrease the barrier for charge injection into the polymer semiconductor. The field-effect mobility of the thin film transistors fabricated by this method approached 0.02cm2V−1s−1 with an on/off current ratio of 105. The relative high mobility may be influenced by the ordering of the poly(3-hexylthiophene) semiconductor layer by the self-assembled monolayer used to define the source and drain electrodes.