Semiconducting Arylacetylene:Insulating Polymer Blends for Organic-Based Electronic Devices

There is considerable focus on increasing charge carrier mobilities in organic electronic devices to compete with current inorganic thin film technologies such as amorphous hydrogenated silicon. Blending of organic semiconductors with common bulk polymers has been shown to be a useful strategy to combine high carrier mobilities with features such as ease of processing, film uniformity, environmental stability and enhanced mechanical properties. Here, blends of chemically readily accessible, small-molecular arylacetylene derivatives with insulating poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) are presented that allow reliable solution processing of field-effect transistor (FET) architectures with electronic characteristics which are comparable to or better than those of the neat semiconductors. We demonstrate that having the chemical means and corresponding processing protocols to control solid-state microstructures by either adjusting the chemical nature of the organic semiconductor, blend composition or deposition temperature, permit straight-forward comparison between materials and allow probing if electronic characteristics are affected by the chemical structure of the organic semiconductor and/or selected processing protocols. It will be seen that it is possible to have arylacetylene concentrations as low as 30 wt% in the bulk but still have sufficient material to form a percolating network required for electronic transport.