Bechgaard Salt-Like Polymers and Their Applications in Organic Electronics

Over the last two decades, there has been substantial development in the manufacturing of nano- and micro- tubes and wires as building blocks for electronic devices, such as field-effect transistors, to complement the conventional semiconductor transistors in electronic circuits. Previous attempts to improve device performance through the development of new materials have focused mostly on carbon or metal oxide-based semiconducting materials. Here, we report a flexible conducting polymer micro-wire grown from the vapor phase via an oxidative polymerization route. Electrical measurements show that the single micro-wires have relatively high conductivity and non-linear electrical characteristics. In addition, we demonstrate the fabrication of a flexible polythiophene micro-wire organic electrochemical transistor, in which the channel and gate are made of single micro-wires. These devices are fully compatible with conventional fabrication processes and operate in the sub-volt regime, and have the potential to be scaled to larger multi-micro-wire architectures and circuits. This study demonstrates the concept of self-assembly of organic molecules and simultaneous polymerization to generate complex, ordered, and functional structures resembling polymerized Bechgaard salts.