Organic thin film transistors and polymer light-emitting diodes patterned by polymer inking and stamping

Abstract

To fully realize the advantages of organic flexible electronics, patterning is very important. In this paper we show that a purely additive patterning technique, termed polymer inking and stamping, can be used to pattern conductive polymer PEDOT and fabricate sub-micron channel length organic thin film transistors. In addition, we applied the technique to transfer a stack of metal/conjugated polymer in one step and fabricated working polymer light-emitting devices. Based on the polymer inking and stamping technique, a roll-to-roll printing for high throughput fabrication has been demonstrated. We investigated and explained the mechanism of this process based on the interfacial energy consideration and by using the finite element analysis. This technique can be further extended to transfer more complex stacked layer structures, which may benefit the research on patterning on flexible substrates.