Letter abstract
Nature Materials 5, 950 - 956 (2006)
Published online: 26 November 2006 | doi:10.1038/nmat1779
Subject Categories: Polymers | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Design synthesis and processing
Multicomponent semiconducting polymer systems with low crystallization-induced percolation threshold
Shalom Goffri1, Christian Müller2, Natalie Stingelin-Stutzmann2,3, Dag W. Breiby4,7, Christopher P. Radano5, Jens W. Andreasen4, Richard Thompson6, René A. J. Janssen5, Martin M. Nielsen4,7, Paul Smith2 & Henning Sirringhaus1
Blends and other multicomponent systems are used in various polymer applications to meet multiple requirements that cannot be fulfilled by a single material1, 2, 3. In polymer optoelectronic devices it is often desirable to combine the semiconducting properties of the conjugated species with the excellent mechanical properties of certain commodity polymers. Here we investigate bicomponent blends comprising semicrystalline regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) and selected semicrystalline commodity polymers, and show that, owing to a highly favourable, crystallization-induced phase segregation of the two components, during which the semiconductor is predominantly expelled to the surfaces of cast films, we can obtain vertically stratified structures in a one-step process. Incorporating these as active layers in polymer field-effect transistors, we find that the concentration of the semiconductor can be reduced to values as low as 3 wt% without any degradation in device performance. This is in stark contrast to blends containing an amorphous insulating polymer, for which significant reduction in electrical performance was reported4. Crystalline–crystalline/semiconducting–insulating multicomponent systems offer expanded flexibility for realizing high-performance semiconducting architectures at drastically reduced materials cost with improved mechanical properties and environmental stability, without the need to design all performance requirements into the active semiconducting polymer itself.
- Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, JJ Thomson Ave., Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
- Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Wolfgang-Pauli Str., CH-8093, Zürich, Switzerland
- Department of Materials, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Rd., London E1 4NS, UK
- Danish Polymer Centre, Risø National Laboratory, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
- Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry, TU Eindhoven, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
- Department of Chemistry, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
- Present address: Centre for Molecular Movies, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, 2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
Correspondence to: Paul Smith2 e-mail: paul.smith@mat.ethz.ch
Correspondence to: Henning Sirringhaus1 e-mail: hs220@cam.ac.uk
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