Foundry-compatible high-resolution patterning of vertically phase-separated semiconducting films for ultraflexible organic electronics

Binghao Wang, Wei Huang, Sunghoon Lee, Lizhen Huang, Zhi Wang, Yao Chen, Zhihua Chen, Liang-Wen Feng, Gang Wang, Tomoyuki Yokota, Takao Someya (), Tobin J. Marks () and Antonio Facchetti ()
Additional contact information
Binghao Wang: Southeast University
Wei Huang: Northwestern University
Sunghoon Lee: The University of Tokyo
Lizhen Huang: Northwestern University
Zhi Wang: Northwestern University
Yao Chen: Northwestern University
Zhihua Chen: Flexterra Inc.
Liang-Wen Feng: Northwestern University
Gang Wang: Northwestern University
Tomoyuki Yokota: The University of Tokyo
Takao Someya: The University of Tokyo
Tobin J. Marks: Northwestern University
Antonio Facchetti: Northwestern University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Solution processability of polymer semiconductors becomes an unfavorable factor during the fabrication of pixelated films since the underlying layer is vulnerable to subsequent solvent exposure. A foundry-compatible patterning process must meet requirements including high-throughput and high-resolution patternability, broad generality, ambient processability, environmentally benign solvents, and, minimal device performance degradation. However, known methodologies can only meet very few of these requirements. Here, a facile photolithographic approach is demonstrated for foundry-compatible high-resolution patterning of known p- and n-type semiconducting polymers. This process involves crosslinking a vertically phase-separated blend of the semiconducting polymer and a UV photocurable additive, and enables ambient processable photopatterning at resolutions as high as 0.5 μm in only three steps with environmentally benign solvents. The patterned semiconducting films can be integrated into thin-film transistors having excellent transport characteristics, low off-currents, and high thermal (up to 175 °C) and chemical (24 h immersion in chloroform) stability. Moreover, these patterned organic structures can also be integrated on 1.5 μm-thick parylene substrates to yield highly flexible (1 mm radius) and mechanically robust (5,000 bending cycles) thin-film transistors.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-25059-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-25059-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25059-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().