title: High operational and environmental stability of high-mobility conjugated polymer field-effect transistors through the use of molecular additives.
abstract: Due to their low-temperature processing properties and inherent mechanical flexibility, conjugated polymer field-effect transistors (FETs) are promising candidates for enabling flexible electronic circuits and displays. Much progress has been made on materials performance; however, there remain significant concerns about operational and environmental stability, particularly in the context of applications that require a very high level of threshold voltage stability, such as active-matrix addressing of organic light-emitting diode displays. Here, we investigate the physical mechanisms behind operational and environmental degradation of high-mobility, p-type polymer FETs and demonstrate an effective route to improve device stability. We show that water incorporated in nanometre-sized voids within the polymer microstructure is the key factor in charge trapping and device degradation. By inserting molecular additives that displace water from these voids, it is possible to increase the stability as well as uniformity to a high level sufficient for demanding industrial applications.
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nikolka
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Iyad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nasrallah
authors.affiliation: Solar &Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Bradley
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1774-3981
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.affiliation: Solar &Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mahesh Kumar
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9518-863X
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Ravva
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Broch
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Aditya
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sadhanala
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Harkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK.
authors.forename: Jerome
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6992-4090
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Charmet
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hurhangee
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-7232-7051
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Steffen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Illig
authors.affiliation: FlexEnable Ltd, 34 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0FX, UK.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Too
authors.affiliation: FlexEnable Ltd, 34 Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge CB4 0FX, UK.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jongman
authors.affiliation: Solar &Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.|Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors.forename: Iain
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: McCulloch
authors.affiliation: Solar &Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Jean-Luc
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bredas
authors.affiliation: Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
authors.forename: Henning
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sirringhaus