High performance and stable N-channel organic field-effect transistors by patterned solvent-vapor annealing

We report the fabrication of high-performance, printed, n-channel organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) based on an N,N-dialkyl-substituted-(1,7&1,6)-dicyanoperylene-3,4:9,10-bis(dicarboximide) derivative, PDI-RCN2, optimized by the solvent-vapor annealing (SVA) process. We performed a systematic study on the influence of solubility and the chemical structure of a solvent used for the SVA process on the ordering and orientation of PDI-RCN2 molecules in the thin film. The PDI-RCN2 film showed improved crystallinity under vapor annealing with the aliphatic 1,2-dichloroethane (DCE) as a marginal solvent. The n-type OFETs with DCE-vapor-annealed PDI-RCN2 show highly improved charge-carrier mobility of ~0.5 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) and higher stability under gate bias stress than the pristine OFETs. This large performance improvement was mainly attributed to increased crystallinity of the semiconductor thin film, enhancing π-π stacking. We also introduced a new method to pattern crystallinity of a certain region in the semiconducting film by selective exposure to the solvent vapor using a shadow mask. The crystal-patterned PDI-RCN2 OFETs exhibit decreased off-currents by ~10× and improved gate bias stability by minimizing crosstalk, reducing leakage current between devices, and reducing the density of charge trap states of the organic semiconductor.