Shear-Enhanced Stretchable Polymer Semiconducting Blends for Polymer-based Field-Effect Transistors

• Published in: Macromolecular research Vol. 28; no. 7; pp. 660 - 669
• Main Authors: Yan, Qian-Yu, Shia, Yu-Wei, Guo, Dong-Yue, Lee, Wen-Ya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Polymer Society of Korea 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V; 한국고분자학회
• Subjects: Alignment; Butadiene; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Charge transport; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Complex Fluids and Microfluidics; Copolymers; Field effect transistors; Ions; Morphology; Nanochemistry; Nanotechnology; Phase separation; Physical Chemistry; Polymer blends; Polymer films; Polymer Sciences; Polymers; Polystyrene resins; Semiconductor devices; Shearing; Soft and Granular Matter; Spin coating; Stretchability; Styrenes; Transistors; Transport properties; 고분자공학; solution shearing; donor-acceptor copolymer; stretchable field-effect transistors; polymer blends
• ISSN: 1598-5032; 2092-7673
• DOI: 10.1007/s13233-020-8126-9

Solution-sheared field-effect transistors based on the blend of the high-mobility donor-acceptor conjugated copolymer poly(diketopyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrrole-co-thieno[3,2-b]thiophene) (PDBT-co-TT) and the elastic polymer poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene) (SBS) are demonstrated for stretchable electronics. In this study, PDBT-co-TT serves as a charge transport layer, and the insulating polymer SBS with double bonds is used for improving elasticity. Through combination with solution shearing, the phase separation and charge transport properties of the PDBT-co-TT/SBS blends can be manipulated. Compared with the spin-coated PDBT-co-TT/SBS blends showing lower charge mobilities (~10 −3 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ), the solution-sheared polymer-blend films with the PDBT-co-TT content of 20% maintain high mobility (>0.1 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ). The films with 60% PDBT-co-TT can even achieve mobility as high as 2 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , which is higher than the pristine conjugated polymer. Furthermore, as the SBS content increases, the dichroic ratios of the solution-sheared blends increase, indicating improved alignment of the conjugated polymer chains. The PDBT-co-TT/SBS blends exhibit great stretchability and high charge mobilities even under 100% strain due to their mesh-like morphology. Moreover, solution shearing not only improves polymer alignment but also controls surface morphology to enhance stretchability. This work reveals the importance of solution shearing in high-mobility stretchable polymer semiconductor blends.