title: Precise Side-Chain Engineering of Thienylenevinylene-Benzotriazole-Based Conjugated Polymers with Coplanar Backbone for Organic Field Effect Transistors and CMOS-like Inverters.
abstract: Two donor-acceptor (D-A) alternating conjugated polymers based on thienylenevinylene-benzotriazole (TV-BTz), PTV6B with a linear side chain and PTVEhB with a branched side chain, were synthesized and characterized for organic field effect transistors (OFETs) and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-like inverters. According to density functional theory (DFT), polymers based on TV-BTz exhibit a coplanar and rigid structure with no significant twists, which could cause to an increase in charge-carrier mobility in OFETs. Alternating alkyl side chains of the polymers impacted neither the band gap nor the energy level. However, it significantly affected the morphology and crystallinity when the polymer films were thermally annealed. To investigate the effect of thermal annealing on the morphology and crystallinity, we characterized the polymer films using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and 2D-grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (2D-GIWAXD). Fibrillary morphologies with larger domains and increased crystallinity were observed in the polymer films after thermal annealing. These polymers exhibited improved charge-carrier mobilities in annealed films at 200 °C and demonstrated optimal OFET device performance with p-type transport characteristics with charge-carrier mobilities of 1.51 cm2/(V s) (PTV6B) and 2.58 cm2/(V s) (PTVEhB). Furthermore, CMOS-like inorganic (ZnO)-organic (PTVEhB) hybrid bilayer inverter showed that the inverting voltage (Vinv) was positioned near the ideal switching point at half (1/2) of supplied voltage (VDD) due to fairly balanced p- and n-channels.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology , 123, Cheomdangwagi-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Min-Hye
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Irvine , Irvine, California 92697, United States.
authors.forename: Juhwan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology , 123, Cheomdangwagi-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Minji
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology , 123, Cheomdangwagi-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jihong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Center for Advanced Soft Electronics, Pohang University of Science and Technology , 77, Cheongam-ro, Nam-gu, Pohang, Gyeongbuk 37673, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Boseok
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology , 123, Cheomdangwagi-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hansu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hwang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering and Center for Advanced Soft Electronics, Pohang University of Science and Technology , 77, Cheongam-ro, Nam-gu, Pohang, Gyeongbuk 37673, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kilwon
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0321-3629
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology , 123, Cheomdangwagi-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju 61005, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Yu
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2874-0329
authors.initials: DY
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: CMOS-like inverter; conjugated polymer; coplanar backbone; donor−acceptor configuration; organic field effect transistor; side-chain engineering