Patterning Liquid Crystalline Organic Semiconductors via Inkjet Printing for High‐Performance Transistor Arrays and Circuits

Abstract

AbstractLiquid crystalline (LC) organic semiconductors having long‐range‐ordered LC phases hold great application potential in organic field‐effect transistors (OFETs). However, to meet real device application requirements, it is a prerequisite to precisely pattern the LC film at desired positions. Here, a facile method that combines the technique of inkjet printing and melt processing to fabricate patterned LC film for achieving high‐performance organic integrated circuits is demonstrated. Inkjet printing controls the deposition locations of the LC materials, while the melt processing implements phase transition of the LC materials to form high‐quality LC films with large grain sizes. This approach enables to achieve patterned growth of high‐quality 2,7‐dioctyl[1]‐benzothieno[3,2‐b][1]benzothiophene (C8‐BTBT) LC films. The patterned C8‐BTBT LC film‐based 7 × 7 OFET array has 100% die yield and shows high average mobility of 6.31 cm2 V−1 s−1, along with maximum mobility up to 9.33 cm2 V−1 s−1. As a result, the inverters based on the patterned LC films reach a high gain up to 23.75 as well as an ultrahigh noise margin over 81.3%. Given the good generality of the patterning process and the high quality of the resulting films, the proposed method paves the way for high‐performance organic integrated devices.