Abstract
Molecular surfactants, which are based on a water-insoluble tail and a water-soluble head, are widely employed in many areas, such as surface coatings or for drug delivery, thanks to their capability to form micelles in solution or supramolecular structures at the solid/liquid interface. Electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistors (EGOFETs) are highly sensitive to changes occurring at their electrolyte/gate electrode and electrolyte/organic semiconductor interfaces, and hence, they have been much explored in biosensing due to their inherent amplification properties. Here, we demonstrate that the EGOFETs and surfactants can provide mutual benefits to each other. EGOFETs can be a simple and complementary tool to study the aggregation behavior of cationic and anionic surfactants at low concentrations on a polarized metal surface. In this way, we have monitored the monolayer formation of cationic and anionic surfactants at the water/electrode interface with p-type and n-type devices, respectively. On the other hand, the operational stability of EGOFETs has been dramatically enhanced, thanks to the formation of a protective layer on top of the organic semiconductor by exposing it to a high concentration of a surfactant solution (above the critical micelle concentration). Stable performances were achieved for more than 10 and 2 h of continuous operation for p-type and n-type devices, respectively. Accordingly, this work points not only that EGOFETs can be applied to a wider range of applications beyond biosensing but also that these devices can effectively improve their long-term stability by simply treating them with a suitable surfactant.
Highlights
Surfactants are amphiphilic molecules that contain a hydrophilic polar head and a long hydrophobic tail.[1−5] They are widely employed in many areas such as detergents and emulsifiers, in nano- and micro-particle preparation, and even in protein research and DNA extraction.[1,6−8] The most intriguing property of surfactants is their capability to form supramolecular structures in a solution like micelles and selfassembled structures at the solid/liquid or solid/air interfaces like admicelles, hemimicelles, and monolayers.[1]
A range of different techniques, including vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy combined with total internal reflection Raman (TIR Raman) scattering[1] or with surface plasmon resonance (SPR)[2] and atomic force microscopy (AFM),[3,11] are commonly employed to investigate the aggregation of this class of molecules on surfaces
It consists of an organic semiconductors (OSCs) layer bottom-contacted by two gold electrodes, namely, source (S) and drain (D)
Summary
Surfactants are amphiphilic molecules that contain a hydrophilic polar head and a long hydrophobic tail.[1−5] They are widely employed in many areas such as detergents and emulsifiers, in nano- and micro-particle preparation, and even in protein research and DNA extraction.[1,6−8] The most intriguing property of surfactants is their capability to form supramolecular structures in a solution like micelles and selfassembled structures at the solid/liquid or solid/air interfaces like admicelles, hemimicelles, and monolayers.[1] The aggregation of surfactants strongly depends on the concentration,[2] electrolyte ionic strength,[3] temperature,[9] and surface properties.[10] A range of different techniques, including vibrational sum frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy combined with total internal reflection Raman (TIR Raman) scattering[1] or with surface plasmon resonance (SPR)[2] and atomic force microscopy (AFM),[3,11] are commonly employed to investigate the aggregation of this class of molecules on surfaces These techniques are not available and, further, the data interpretation can be complex. Our current work further evidences the high potential of EGOFETs, proving that these devices can exhibit improved electrical performance and that they can be applied to a broader range of applications
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