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Designing organic mixed conductors for electrochemical transistor applications

Nature Reviews Materials volume 9, pages 249–265 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) has emerged as the core component of specialized bioelectronic technologies, such as neural interfaces and sensors of disease biomarkers. At the heart of the OECT is its channel, made of an organic mixed ionic–electronic conductor (OMIEC). The chemical structure of the OMIEC governs the electronic, optical and mechanical traits of OECT, with even subtle structural tweaks leading to sizeable functional disparities. In this Review, we summarize the recent progress in OECT device development while underscoring the critical role of OMIEC selection in steering diverse applications. Our narrative charts the milestones in materials exploration, tracing the evolution of the field in parallel with polymer chemistry breakthroughs. We emphasize how materials design has enabled new device operation mechanisms by adding features such as biocompatibility, stretchability, stimuli response and memory retention to OMIECs. We also highlight the obstacles that must be surmounted to translate OECT-based devices from laboratory instruments into tangible real-world technologies.

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Fig. 1: Operation and history of OECTs.
Fig. 2: Chemical structures of representative OMIECs.
Fig. 3: Timeline of OMIEC designs.
Fig. 4: Strategies for controlling the electrical and mechanical properties of OECTs.
Fig. 5: Strategies towards multi-functional OMIECs and application examples of stimuli-responsive OECTs.

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Acknowledgements

This publication is based upon work supported by KAUST Research Funding (KRF) under award numbers ORA-2021-CRG10-4650 and ORA-2021-CRG10-4668, and KAUST Smart Health Initiative under award number REI/1/5130-01-01.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Yazhou Wang, Shofarul Wustoni.

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  1. Organic Bioelectronics Laboratory, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Yazhou Wang, Shofarul Wustoni, Jokubas Surgailis, Yizhou Zhong, Anil Koklu & Sahika Inal

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S.I. conceived the project and outlined the manuscript. S.I., Y.W. and S.W. wrote the manuscript and prepared the figures with contributions from Y.Z., J.S. and A.K. All authors reviewed and/or edited the manuscript and figures before submission.

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Wang, Y., Wustoni, S., Surgailis, J. et al. Designing organic mixed conductors for electrochemical transistor applications. Nat Rev Mater 9, 249–265 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-024-00652-7

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