Logic-Gate Devices Based on Printed Polymer Semiconducting Nanostripes

Abstract

The applications of organic semiconductors in complex circuitry such as printed CMOS-like logic circuits demand miniaturization of the active structures to the submicrometric and nanoscale level while enhancing or at least preserving the charge transport properties upon processing. Here, we addressed this issue by using a wet lithographic technique, which exploits and enhances the molecular order in polymers by spatial confinement, to fabricate ambipolar organic field effect transistors and inverter circuits based on nanostructured single component ambipolar polymeric semiconductor. In our devices, the current flows through a precisely defined array of nanostripes made of a highly ordered diketopyrrolopyrrole-benzothiadiazole copolymer with high charge carrier mobility (1.45 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) for electrons and 0.70 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) for holes). Finally, we demonstrated the functionality of the ambipolar nanostripe transistors by assembling them into an inverter circuit that exhibits a gain (105) comparable to inverters based on single crystal semiconductors.