Abstract
We report the fabrication of a range of organic circuits produced by a high-yielding, vacuum-based process compatible with roll-to-roll production. The circuits include inverters, NAND and NOR logic gates, a simple memory element (set-reset latch), and a modified Wilson current mirror circuit. The measured circuit responses are presented together with simulated responses based on a previously reported transistor model of organic transistors produced using our fabrication process. Circuit simulations replicated all the key features of the experimentally observed circuit performance. The logic gates were capable of operating at frequencies in excess of 1 kHz while the current mirror circuit produced currents up to 18 μA.
Highlights
O VER the last decade or so, there has been increasing interest in developing low-cost processes for printing organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) and circuits onto flexible substrates
In [14]–[18], we have demonstrated that OTFT and circuit fabrication based on thermal evaporation of the various layers is a feasible proposition for low-cost R2R device and circuit fabrication
The inverter function was achieved by grounding the connection between the two input OTFTs of the NAND circuit
Summary
O VER the last decade or so, there has been increasing interest in developing low-cost processes for printing organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) and circuits onto flexible substrates. In [14]–[18], we have demonstrated that OTFT and circuit fabrication based on thermal evaporation of the various layers is a feasible proposition for low-cost R2R device and circuit fabrication. Vacuum processing removes many solvent related issues, e.g., solvent drying times and recovery, solvent-induced layer interdiffusion, pinhole defects, and surface roughness, which can lead to poor device performance and low yield, negating the suggested cost advantage of solution-based processes. In [18], we focused attention on the fabrication and characterization of transistors, inverters, and ring oscillators We extend this novel, vacuum-based fabrication approach to the manufacture of digital logic circuits [NAND/NOR logic gates and set–reset (S–R) latch] and an analog circuit (current mirror). We show that a previously derived transistor model [18], when used to simulate the response of the fabricated circuits, replicates well the observed experimental performance
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