Electrical characterization of polymeric semiconductors for printed and flexible electronics

• Main Author: David John Antonio Daileg Maulit
• Other Authors: Leong Wei Lin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/177085
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Extensive research is being conducted on printable electronics because of their potential for flexibility and high volume production of high-performance and low-cost devices. It opens a new avenue for electronics manufacturing process using conductive inks through ink-jetting, dispensing or screen print methods. Towards this objective, various flexible substrates such as polymers, paper, or fabrics can be utilised leading to a lightweight and thinly printed component. The objective of this project is to explore investigate and explore semiconductor materials for organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), focusing on achieving high and stable performance. Moreover, the project seeks to gain a thorough knowledge about how the behaviour of OECT is influenced by key factors associated with organic materials. These factors include the choice of organic material constituents and the addition of additives like solvents and ionic liquids, which have the potential to enhance the electrical and mechanical properties of the chosen organic material. The project involves the fabrication of simple OECTs, which consists of metallic source, drain, and gate electrodes, a polymer channel and an electrolyte layer between the channel and the gate on a normal and flexible substrate. Despite obtaining some encouraging results, there is still significant room for improvement, particularly in areas such as fabrication process, optimisation of the active material and having a better understanding of the nature of interactions between the additives and polymer hosts that occur in the OECT channels.